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Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is the boss of weapons manufacturing corp Stark Industries, filthy rich, a playboy and loving it. He even believes into his own marketing spins and is convinced the weapons he builds and sells are helping to keep (or make) peace. In Afghanistan, he proudly presents his newest invention - the Jericho missile, able to vaporize a mountain range with one shot. But then his convoy gets attacked with weapons of his own brand, and Stark is wounded by one of his own grenades and kidnapped by a terrorist group. Another captive, Dr. Ho Yinsen (Shaun Toub) saves his life, but Stark has to wear an electromagnet in his body now, preventing shrapnels from reaching his heart and killing him. The terrorists want him to build them their own Jericho missile, but instead he builds a power armor from scrap and uses it to escape.
Back home, he announces Stark Industries will stop producing weapons, but his partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), has taken over the company and is selling weapons to anybody who can pay, including terrorists. Stark builds a new power-suit, the Mark II, and sets out for setting things right, aided only by his personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).

Iron Man is the Marvel Studio’s first independent feature and introduces one of the less known superheros out of the Marvel universe. And it introduces Iron Man with a bang. Just like Batman Begins or Spider-Man, this is not a quick cash-in riding on the current wave of (more or less) successful superhero-flicks with a cheap script, cheap FX and cheap actors. Jon Favreau takes the story seriously, and the actors take their characters seriously - even Gwyneth Paltrow who has to lend a character with a Bond Girl-like moniker charm, courage, sexiness and vulnerability. To cast Robert Downey Jr. as the lead sure was a risk, but it paid off - Robert doesn’t let Marvel down (pun intended) and shows why he is considered one of the best actors of his generation. Jeff Bridges hams it up a bit, but that’s exactly what you do as a cartoon villain, and he seems to genuinely enjoy his villainy, head shaved and beard grown.
Iron Man has all the ingredients for an enjoyable superhero film: believable acting, a solid superhero origin story, just the right dose of humor, lots of action and the all-important human touch. And it’s just unbelievably cool when the ground shakes under Iron Man’s mighty footsteps!
The cast has already signed for two more Iron Man movies - and we are looking forward to seeing them!

Iron Man movie trailer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 3:07 pm and is filed under 4-star-movies, 3-star-movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.