I took Friday afternoon off of work so I could go see Iron Man. The buzz on this flick is pretty much spot on. It's an excellent movie. It'll take time to put it into objective context, but on first impression, it's as good as the first two Spider-Man movies and X-Men 2. If you're on the fence don't expect to be let down.The movie is incredibly well-casted. Robert Downey Jr. was born to play Tony Stark and he absolutely nails the role. I really look forward to seeing where they take the character in future movies. Jeff "The Dude" Daniels, did a surprisingly good job Stark Enterprises money man, Obidiah Stane. I didn't think the role seemed to be a good fit for a guy whose best (and I mean that sincerely) work was as the laziest man in all of Los Angeles ("Careful, man, there's a beverage here!"), but damn if he didn't sell that part... at least until the film starts to derail in the last half hour or so.
The movie actually reminds me a bit of Batman Begins, which was an unbelievably good -even perfect- flick until you get to the final bit of plotting. In Batman Begins it was the dastardly Water Tower of Doom, which struck me as contrived and not remotely believable, even if the action was frigg'n sweet. In Iron Man a lot of the film is dedicated to Tony Stark building, testing and learning to use his armor. As a viewer you're making the conceit that all of this is really possible, but you're doing so with the film making damn clear that this is not an overnight process. What Tony Stark is doing is hard. So, when the ultimate villain of the piece seems to procure and master his suit at the drop of a pin it strains all credibility. The action in this part of the film is still great, but any suspension of disbelief goes right out the window, along with Gwyneth Paltrow's performance as Tony Stark uber-secretary, Pepper Potts. Paltrow, like the film, is great until the end, where she's in a ton of effects-heavy scenes and she's completely unable to sell it.
All that said, though, the negatives don't come close to dragging down all the fantastic highs. As mentioned, Downey Jr. is Tony Stark from beginning to end. There's not nearly as much Iron Man in the film as I'd of liked to see, but the effects totally sell it. The first time Stark flies the armor out of his lab and really learns to fly it... [shudder] even as a kid I've never wanted to *be* Iron Man more than in those first scenes of flight. I mean Stark isn't Superman. He's just a regular guy and suddenly he's f'n flying around LA (?); it's pure, liquid joy. Likewise, they do an excellent job of making the Iron Man suit believable, which outside of comic books, is a pretty tough sell.
Finally, if you are at all a fan of the core Marvel books, stick around past the end credits. I won't spoil it here, but there's a cameo in there that made me want to giggle like a school girl. If you're not a comic book reader or if you don't like Marvel's stuff, however, the scene probably won't do much for you. Iron Man is just about as good as a superhero comic book adaptation can get.
