I'm going to Oz for a heart ...You certainly got it Tin Man!

Rating: 8/10 (12 June 2008)

Tony Stark is a weapons manufacturer with a jet-set Hugh Heffner style life (or lifestyle!) He lives to make new and innovative machines enjoys fast cars and even faster women. Kind of like Batman but with Tony Stark there is no playboy persona, there is simply a playboy personality. All of this changes when after a routine sales pitch in the middle east for his new weapon "The Jericho", when terrorists using his own weapons capture him and decide to use his skills in order to make a new weapon for them. Using the limited time that he has he instead makes an armoured suit to get him and his captive translator out of there in one piece.
After getting back to the US he has an epiphany and realises that his weapons are causing more harm than good and potentially all massed produced weapons can wind up in the wrong hands. The only logical thing to do is make one weapon that can be used by the right person to make a difference, and so is born Iron Man.
Whilst I really enjoyed this film and thought it was supremely handled by the director of "Zathura" and "Elf" which came before, and the script was also fairly decent, though nothing spectacular, it is Robert Downey Jr's mesmerising performance that really allows the film to go from being a mere "Hulk" to a "Spiderman" standard. His personality is ideal and his change from stand alone, immune from criticism playboy to a man of integrity is handled with real skill.
In my personal opinion this does not deserve to be as high as it is in the IMDb rankings. It certainly is enjoyable and unlike many films that start the blockbuster season it doesn't feel like the filler film to get things rolling, it is a decent film in its own right and maybe that's why it is in the top 250 as people are swept along in surprised delight by a superhero that they've never heard of before.
Nuff said Em