Iron Man

An notable addition to the ever growing comic-to-movie library.

Iron Man is an impressive comic book origin movie that falls comfortably in between the very dark Batman Begins and the very light Spider-Man. Actually, it tends to lean a little bit closer the light the side while (occasionally) dealing in more dark material.

I was not very familiar with the character of Tony Stark before hearing about this movie. I must say I wasn't disappointed. There were a lot of liberties taken with how good he is at just about everything but he does have enough flaws to make him believable.

The acting is strong, though obviously not as high as it should be with said cast but it is a comic book movie so what should you expect? Most notable though would be RDJ as Tony Stark.

The visuals are amazing and quite seamlessly blend with the rest of the surroundings. The directing is solid by Bodyguard Jon Favreau.

The downfall is that being an origin movie and trying to stay grounded in reality, the villain in this movie is not as fleshed out as he should be and is not as supernatural as they ultimately will have to be. I would hate to just end up watching sequel after sequel of Iron Man beating up bigger and bigger mechanical foes.

All in all a very entertaining comic origin movie that could have a long and prosperous string of sequels if handled with as much care as this.

Score: 3 and a half Ark Reactors (out of 5)

A Mechanical Melange Message:

"Hey Tony."
"I'm sorry. This is the fun-vee. The hum-drum-vee is back there."

Jon Favreau took it off the page. Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow jumped off the page.