“Iron Man”…

First off, it's Iron Man. Ironman is a triathlon or triathlete, Iron Man is the comic book hero. Now that we've got that out of the way…Iron Man was one of my favorite comics (looking back, I think I always enjoyed the characters who weren't born with super powers; Iron Man, Batman Captain America, but as always I digress) so I was both excited ("X-men", "Batman Returns") and leery ("Daredevil", "Hulk") when I heard that they were making an Iron Man movie. I shouldn't have worried…

I really enjoyed "Iron Man". It's fun, fast (I never checked my watch during the movie), you don't need to know to know the comic to enjoy it. Of course if you do know the comics and the "Marvel Universe" there are several great little in jokes for you as well (including a new government agency that gave me a big laugh).

With movies like this action is puts people in the seats and on this score "Iron Man" doesn't disappoint; bad guys get what's coming to them in high tech glory, and the scenes where Stark is building and learning how to use his suit include some of the funniest bits. I don't want to say too much because I'd hate to spoil it, but if you've enjoyed the trailers I can safely say that you'll really enjoy the full suit.

While the action is fantastic, where the movie really shins is in the casting. A strong supporting cast includes Terrence Howard as "Rhodey" and a redheaded Gwyneth Paltrow as Stark's long time assistant "Pepper Potts", both huge parts of the comic book. Jeff Bridges is fantastic as the bad guy Obadiah Stane (also from the comics). But the real genius was in tapping Robert Downey Jr. to play Stark, a role he pulls off beautifully. It's funny to say this about a superhero action flick, but there are a lot of great characters in this movie and they're all played pretty much to perfect pitch.

Overall this definitely falls into the really fun popcorn movie. As I said before about this type of movie, it's not "Gandhi" or "Chariots of Fire", but if you're looking for a little escapist entertainment, this is the best I've seen this year.

Trailer watch (the movies before the movies) –

"The Hulk" – I think it's hilarious that no one mentions the Ang Lee version, it's like it never happened (and it shouldn't have). That said, the "new" one looks pretty good.
"The Dark Knight" – This is a tough one because it's Heath Ledger's last film, but he looks phenomenal as the Joker, really looking forward to this one.
Indy 4 – It's amazing that you can show just the silhouette of a guy in a fedora and everybody immediately knows who it is.