Synopsis:

When wealthy industrialist Tony Stark is forced to build an armored suit after a life-threatening incident, he ultimately decides to use its technology to fight against evil.  Robert Downey Jr. leads a great cast in the first of the summer blockbusters to hit theaters in 2008.  It always seems that the summer movies start earlier each year.  The first this year was released on May 2nd and it is a good one to kick start the season.

The Freak's Rating: A : Going to see Iron Man began with an interesting twist.  A day before the film was released, Brian mentioned to me that the local theater, Wehrenberg, didn't have a digital print available.  I had a situation months ago with a print of Stop Loss, which the theater also did not carry in a digital form.  Not to bore everyone with the details on the situation, but a long email to execs at the theater, Paramount and Technicolor resulted in a phone call from the Vice President of Paramount's Theatrical Marketing division and an apologetic and understanding email and letter from the local theater's manager, Linda.  Some situations are beyond a local businessman's control when they are part of a franchise and I credit Linda for doing as much as she could to remedy the situation.  Wehrenberg remains my theater of choice in the area.  Now back to the review...

Superhero/comic book movies are among the hardest genres of film to do well, so when one comes along that succeeds, it deserves to be praised.  So many heroes are 2 dimensional, leaving the audience with a "couldn't care less" attitude about the lead role they should be rooting for.  The successful movies in this genre (Spiderman, Superman and now Iron Man - whoah, maybe the secret should be having "man" in the title) are few and far between, but all have a commonality of adding humanity to the situation. 

These films are so difficult to pull off is because we've seen them before.  When I sit down to watch a mystery movie, I have no clue during the opening credits what is going to happen.  I'm curious who the killer might be and struggling to understand the mystery.  This makes for a semi-easy genre to produce.  All a mystery director needs to do is keep the mystery interesting throughout and have a good reveal.  In a genre such as Iron Man, I know as I'm purchasing my tickets how the movie will go.  I know that there will be a good guy, a friend of the good guy, a girl in the good guy's life, a bad guy, some special effects and an inevitable battle between the good and bad guy that will result in a victory by the good guy, albeit a close call for sure.  So how do you tell the same story over and over successfully?  Ask Iron Man's director, Jon Favreau, because he has pulled it off beautifully.

Iron Man is a good time a the movies in a time in our country where a good time needs to be had by many.  Robert Downey Jr. leaves a stamp on Tony Stark making you question if anyone else could have played him.  The supporting cast of the film, including Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges are all stellar in their roles.  The real winner in this film is the story, which is as solid a Marvel-spawned script as you may ever see, in my mind beating Spiderman.  The story is believable in every way.  Favreau does a fantastic job of weaving the talented actors, wonderful screenplay adaptation and tight special effects together into a superhero gem.  There were moments in this film where I was just smiling at the magic on the screen.  Usually you have to wait until mid-July to get a summer blockbuster that entertains on all level.  This year, summer started early.

Suzanne's Rating: B : I thought this was a pretty good movie.  I didn't expect much from it when I went to see it, but would have seen anything for a night away from the kids!  I was very surprised with Robert Downey Jr.'s performance. I don't think anyone else would have been that perfect for his role of Tony Stark.  Jeff Bridges was great as the antagonist. It was worth seeing!

Sue's Rating: A : Best movie I've seen in a while.  Loved the special effects and Robert Downey Jr. looks like he may actually be back in the acting game.

Angie's Rating: A- : I have zero Iron Man knowledge.  I was VERY reserved about seeing this movie...  In fact, I when I saw the previews for the first time I whenced and prayed for the careers of Robert Downey Jr. and Terrence Howard.  I was not disappointed!  Yes, it was completely predictable, but what action hero movie isn't??  The humor was sarcastic and dry (which I like and seemed to fit the Tony Stark character) and well delivered... without knowing anything about this comic book hero before the film, I had a decent grasp on the characters by the time the film ended.  Plus the computer special effects and the explosions in the film were well done.  The only thing I would change is the way they filmed the motorcade scene first and then went back 36 hours to explain how he got there and then it recovered some of the same footage.  It didn't help the film at all and wasn't necessary.  It could have been in chronological order without any problem... could possibly have been done to make the movie a little longer.  I also thought that Terrence was a little to reserved for his character, but he seemed to fit a little better by the end of the film.  Even with it's flaws this movie has excellent actors to help carry it and executes it's comic book hero requirements with high marks from me.  Not as good as Spiderman 1, but very entertaining and worth seeing.  

Jen's Rating: A- : This movie was so much fun!!  I don't normally love superhero/comic book movies but I really liked this one.  It was funny, believable and the computer graphics were wonderful, I never thought one time that it looked fake.  Acting was great too.  I like Nate's observation about how it was very cliche yet still very interesting.  Loved the music too!  Another bonus...not many fight scenes at all...those drag on for me.  If you liked Spiderman I know you will love this movie.  A great one to see in theaters.

Nate's Rating: B : Robert Downy Jr single-handedly saves this film from being Spider-Man 3.  Despite it's lowest-common denominator plot and some forced in-jokes, it's an entertaining film that doesn't take itself too seriously.  I image some of the loyal Iron Man fans will have problems with it, like I did with Spider-Man, but for us unwashed masses it's a fun ride.  Oh, the B grade in this case stands for Predictability.   And without RDJ it probably would have been a D.

Brian's Rating: B : Like others, I also know very little about the Iron Man comics.  It was an entertaining action-comic film, and I agree with all the rest of you that RDJ does an excellent job.  The film is shot well, moves along well, and keeps your attention throughout.  However, I am going to throw in with Nate on this one.

For a comic book film, you need to let many things plot related go.  You just need to throw out the window things that are impossible.  Despite the general feel, comic book settings are NOT supposed to echo current society, so impossible feats are forgiven due to the universe.

However...   One does not have to forgive consistency related plot holes in the writing, nor does one have to forgive holes in the writing for character motivations.  This film is sketchy on both accounts.  For example, how did he learn to fight?  No amount of technology teaches him fighting techniques unless he is operating within the Matrix.  In contrast, Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins is shown to be training his hand-to-hand combat skills.

Furthermore, I thought the villain of the show was uninteresting, and the final battle was lackluster.  Somehow the bad guy hops into his own suit and automatically knows how to pilot it.  Again, this isn't the Matrix.

The movie is better than the Spidermans (I was in a minority that did not like them as much, and never even bothered to see #3 after the 2nd).  The movie is not better than the first X-men or X-men 2, and it certainly is not nearly as good as the last two Batman films.

I do still give it a B-rating because I tend to overrate comic-action films due to the genre which I love.  It was fun to watch.  I likely will not watch it again, but I will see the sequel.

Storminator's Rating: C : Granted, this is not my type of movie, and I should've known better than to watch it, but the reviews were so good I thought I'd give it a chance.  And the plot was less convoluted than with other action / superhero movies.  However, I was mostly just bored, and at no point actually cared about any of the characters.
 

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