When you have two small children and a very busy home life, you don’t get out to the movie theaters as much except to see kids movies.  Sure I have seen Kung Fu Panda, Speed Racer, Wall-E, and just about every kids movie that comes out as they come out.  Which I don’t mind, I actually am a kid at heart and LOVED WALL-E as one of the best movies I have ever seen.  Kung Fu Panda was equally incredible and Jack Black was at his funniest as Po.

But I have been wanting to see Iron Man ever since prior to its release, the press hype and the reviews gave it high praise and I only hungered to watch the movie more.  Yesterday I rented it and watched half of the movie finishing the other half this afternoon.

Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark so well that you could imagine he is that character.  A brash, brilliant scientist who is so smug and self confident that his charisma rolls off of his sleeves like rain off a car windshield.   Even prior to Tony Stark becoming the “Iron Man” he was a character full of self cockiness and the kind of man every guy wishes he was.

This is in direct contrast to most superhero movies where the hero is a down on his luck, outcast, social misfit or nerd.  Rather than it being a movie about someone who discovers themselves and gains strength to do good, it is about someone who realizes that they have the gift and ability all along, and learn to put their gifts to a noble purpose.  Tony Stark’s biggest weakness was his ignorance and how easily he was mislead by Obadiah Stane who worked with him at Stark Industries.

Seriously I enjoyed this movie as much as I first enjoyed seeing the original Spiderman.  Instead of showing off super powers, it instead shows off a man with a gift for technology and what he can accomplish with that technology.  I thought Gwenneth Paltrow did a fine job as Pepper Potts, much more enjoyable than her role in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow in my opinion.

Jon Favreau who also directed “Elf” which is one of my family’s favorite movies, did a superb job with Iron Man which only makes us hunger for a sequel.  One of the best scenes in the movie is when Pepper Potts discovers Tony Stark being unsuited by his robotics and he exclaims “It’s not like this is the worst thing you caught me doing”.

I thought Jeff Bridges did a great job as the villain barely recognizable as Jeff Bridges actually, the bald head and long beard really threw me at first.  His villainous plans are a bit outlandish and he seemed a little too knowledgable about the techology especially when confronting Iron Man in the Iron Monger Suit.  His team of scientists who couldn’t reproduce Tony Stark’s power source shouldn’t have been able to upgrade that suite as Tony much off of Tony’s plans I would think.

I would have liked to have seen more encounters and situations for which Iron Man was called for, the movie spent a good deal of time showing the human side of Tony Stark and this was very pleasant though as some movies like X-Men over do it on the Super Hero stuff.  My favorite thing about Tony Stark is instead of wanting to have a secret identity that nobody knew, he is brash enough to announce “I am Iron Man” which is one of the best lines in the movie delivered by Tony Stark at the end of the film.

I am very excited about seeing a sequel, and honestly this makes me want to see more films with Robert Downey Jr in them.  The last film I saw with him was The Shaggy Dog, where he was a villainous scientist actually, and thought it was an okay role and an enjoyable film, his acting talents are far better and its good to see him stretch to something high caliber.

-Dragon Blogger

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