The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Ah to be a summer blockbuster. Iron Man, my first anticipated movie of 2008 turns out to be worth the wait...

The film begins with the perfectly cast Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark demonstrating a new type of missile to the military in Afghanistan. On his departure his convoy (funvee lol) is attacked, which leads to Downey being held captive by generic, middle eastern terrorist group. They order Stark to build the missile he was demonstrating under almost no supervision. In hindsight it seems foolish that these terrorists would leave Stark unattended especially since while they are watching they even say "it doesn't look like a missile". Well the terrorists soon pay for their moronic actions when Stark instead builds a prototype of the iron man suit and beats the shit out of everyone.
Stark returns home and announces that Stark Industries will cease all weapon and military projects, and will stop producing weapons. Enter Obediah Stane (Jeff Bridges), who becomes worried about the companies future. A power struggle between Stane and Stark develops. Bridges does a great job of turning into the villain throughout the movie, making it a believable transition. From here the movie develops as you would expect, as were introduced to the other cast. Stark's assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) creates great chemistry with Downey throughout the film. Terence Howard who plays Jim Rhodes perfectly portrays Tonys best friend and right hand man (and has one of my favorite one liners in the movie)

So overall, the action scenes are great even with the plentiful CG, the camera work looks awesome. Sometimes the technology can be over the top. The comic relief is funny but sometimes also pushes it. The cast is great, and the story works (although the ending is just ok).

But its a damn fun ride, and thats all it had to be.

Final Verdict: B+