Movies

While in the Middle East providing a new-product demonstration to the US Armed Forces, super-genius playboy weaponsmaker Tony Stark is ambushed and kidnapped. To buy his freedom from his captors he must construct the new weapon he was showcasing. He decides, instead, to build a suit made of iron to help him escape, a suit powered by an electromagnet that was installed in his chest to prevent shrapnel from entering his heart. Further design modifications and refinements lead Stark to a truly amazing concept which makes him a bonafide superhero.

The movie follows its hero (pun intended) on a series of personality changes. He goes from chick magnet to humble captive and from cocky fly boy to man on a mission. I am sure you can figure out which traits were more entertaining.

I was impressed at first with how much hype was created for this movie. Those involved took a pretty well-known but certainly less-popular comic book character and made it one of the most highly anticipated films in at least recent history. My hat is off to them all for going beyond that and delivering such a fun and energizing movie. They also followed the story well and included at least two teasers as to what we might see sometime into the future (*cough* War Machine and The Avengers *cough*).

The story gets in the way a few times, and it is cheesy comic book story, but I hope you can get past that. With the volume of comic books being adapted to film, most people should be pretty used to that by now. What that story does is form the environment in which the special effects can really shine.

Tony Stark is a stronger personality (and thus a better lead) than either Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne, and Iron Man and the pace of his movie are also significantly more explosive. Since you're now questioning me, I will say that Iron Man was better than any of the Spider-Man movies. And I liked Iron Man for different reasons than Batman, so that is a hard comparison to make, but I think Batman Begins is still the better movie. And we'll see how Mr. Stark does against The Dark Knight later this summer.

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Stan Lee: You know, I think you ought to get him some help. He seems to be really hung up on super heroes' sex organs.