"Tony Stark: [reading the newspaper] Iron Man? That's kinda catchy" Tony Stark is a billionaire industrialist and genius inventor who is kidnapped and forced to build a devastating weapon. Instead, using his intelligence and ingenuity, Tony builds a high-tech suit of armour and escapes captivity. When he uncovers a nefarious plot with global implications, he dons his powerful armour and vows to protect the world as Iron Man.
Iron Man was touted to be a good film from the start, but boy; I didn't expect it to be "that" good. It is primarily good because of its stunning special effects. Now, those who are familiar with Iron Man comic book or even those who have seen the TV series will know what I am talking about. For others who are not familiar with Iron Man, this film has a strong storyline that shows briefly how Tony Stark came up with the Iron Man suit and why did he actually decided to create it. You will also see a man who decided to change his life, in order to fight against evil and help all those innocent people from getting killed. Sounds familiar? Yes, the story is not original but it is well delivered.
The plot is a typical superhero story; a guy who uses his talent for doing something completely irrelevant or something that only makes his life better, (creating weapons of mass destruction and selling them worldwide in this case) but after a terrible situation that put his life in danger opened his eyes, and so he decided to use his knowledge by helping humanity and protecting civilians from the bad guys. Only one difference to most of the other super hero flicks: just like Batman, Iron Man doesn't have any super powers. He is a normal man, only he is extremely good at machinery and engineering. He is a genius. So, while Tony Stark has being attacked by terrorists, he was brutally injured by his own weapon during the attack. This made him realise that he wasted his life by creating something that takes lives of innocent people. After the incident, he constructs a suit which will help him escape from his kidnappers an later on; he will create a much better version of this suit, in order to protect people around the world. But unfortunately for Tony, there is someone that wants to stop him from helping people, someone who only wants to earn money by causing other people deaths, and therefore Tony Stark must face this person and stop him from killing him and everyone else.
Robert Downey Jr. Plays Tony Stark. A thing about playing a superhero in the movie like Spider-Man or X-Men is that people will remember you for your role, no matter how well or bad you performed in this movie. Robert most certainly will be remembered as one of the best actors to play a superhero. He did ever so great; he acted as a typical jackass millionaire at the start of the movie, but later on he changed, he became more responsible and grateful for things he could have achieved if he was using his knowledge in a good way. He was witty, hilarious and the way he said all of his dialogues, all that was fantastic. He handled the role well, even though he is older that Tony Stark. Gwyneth Paltrow played Tony's fiancé Pepper Potts. She and Robert had a lot of mixture between them, they looked great together and their dialogues were often hilarious yet romantic. Terrence Howard played James Rupert Rhodes, a close friend of Stark and his future superhero partner War Machine. Terrence were good in his role, even though at times he looked a bit out of place, he was generally fine and even funny at times. Even though we don't get to see him as War Machine, we get a hint that he will definitely use the suit in the next Iron Man movie. Finally, Jeff Bridges plays Obadiah Stane, Tony's business partner and later his primal enemy of this film, Iron Monger. Jeff is extremely good as a bad guy, I can guarantee that you will dislike his character after the first time you see him in the movie.
Most of the superhero movies are famous for its special effects but this one had more than that. The dialogues were really good; they are brilliant throughout the whole movie. Cinematography is great, the light mixture is good and it is easy to watch the whole movie without moving your eyes away from the screen.
Overall, Iron Man movie is a pleasure to watch, especially on the big screen. While most of the superhero movies don't have what it takes to be called "super", Iron Man rose beyond expectations and quite easily became one of this year's best superhero movies. A massive credit to John Favreau for creating this stunning film that can be truly remembered as one of the best in its category.
Review Date: 11th of May, 2008.
