Before the two days of insanely nice weather, frisbee madness and sunburn that was the weekend, I saw Iron Man on Thursday night at 12:01. First things first: seeing movies at midnight on the day they come out is awesome, especially when you're able to haul a group of your friends who have to work the next day along with you. Second things second: I am not an impartial reviewer. I've read Iron Man comics, and I love superhero movies. I am the target audience. However, I also had fairly high expectations of the flick, given the positive reviews I'd read and the fact that the trailers kicked ass. I was not disappointed.
How not disappointed? Marvel has had (by my count) nine origin films: Blade, X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Daredevil, Punisher, Ghost Rider and now Iron Man. One is out-and-out bad (Ghost Rider), two have enjoyable elements but are fatally flawed (FF and Punisher), two are decent (Blade and the director's cut of Daredevil), two are pretty good with minor issues (X-Men and Hulk, which is consistently undervalued) and one, while not perfect, is fantastic (Spider-Man). Iron Man is Spider-Man good. That's how good this is. Don't get me wrong, it still has flaws, but it's so easy to look past them you might not even notice the first time you see the movie.
Robert Downey Jr. makes the film. It's all about Tony Stark, and RDJ does a great job playing a great character. Jeff Bridges makes a great villian, Terence Howard is very good as Tony's friend, and Gweneth Paltrow totally delivers as Pepper Potts (which I was worried about after seeing Sky Captain). The performances are backed up by the fact that Iron Man is probably the coolest-looking superhero yet. The FX are slick as hell, and when Tony finally suits up in the red and gold it is damn impressive.
Iron Man is the first production by Marvel Studios, the production company Marvel started a few years ago when they stopped selling their character rights to Hollywood studios for production. This is important in two ways: first, it gives Marvel creative control over its movies, so presumably we'll never have anything as bad as Ghost Rider of FF:Silver Surfer inflicted on us again. Second, with its charcters under one roof, we can start to see the Marvel Universe as a whole, instead of everyone is separate worlds. If you don't already know, there's a scene at the very end of the movie, after the credits. Make sure you stay for it.
When the movie ended and the lights came on at about 2:30am, my only real problem with Iron Man was that I couldn't watch the sequel right then and there. It's planned for 2010, which is honestly much, much too long to wait. Marvel needs to get its ass in gear on this one.
How not disappointed? Marvel has had (by my count) nine origin films: Blade, X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Daredevil, Punisher, Ghost Rider and now Iron Man. One is out-and-out bad (Ghost Rider), two have enjoyable elements but are fatally flawed (FF and Punisher), two are decent (Blade and the director's cut of Daredevil), two are pretty good with minor issues (X-Men and Hulk, which is consistently undervalued) and one, while not perfect, is fantastic (Spider-Man). Iron Man is Spider-Man good. That's how good this is. Don't get me wrong, it still has flaws, but it's so easy to look past them you might not even notice the first time you see the movie.
Robert Downey Jr. makes the film. It's all about Tony Stark, and RDJ does a great job playing a great character. Jeff Bridges makes a great villian, Terence Howard is very good as Tony's friend, and Gweneth Paltrow totally delivers as Pepper Potts (which I was worried about after seeing Sky Captain). The performances are backed up by the fact that Iron Man is probably the coolest-looking superhero yet. The FX are slick as hell, and when Tony finally suits up in the red and gold it is damn impressive.
Iron Man is the first production by Marvel Studios, the production company Marvel started a few years ago when they stopped selling their character rights to Hollywood studios for production. This is important in two ways: first, it gives Marvel creative control over its movies, so presumably we'll never have anything as bad as Ghost Rider of FF:Silver Surfer inflicted on us again. Second, with its charcters under one roof, we can start to see the Marvel Universe as a whole, instead of everyone is separate worlds. If you don't already know, there's a scene at the very end of the movie, after the credits. Make sure you stay for it.
When the movie ended and the lights came on at about 2:30am, my only real problem with Iron Man was that I couldn't watch the sequel right then and there. It's planned for 2010, which is honestly much, much too long to wait. Marvel needs to get its ass in gear on this one.
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