Joe’s Review: Iron Man

Wow. That’s one word to describe Iron Man, and it was the one word that was running through my mind after seeing the movie. To put it shortly, I thought it was an incredible film, and if you haven’t seen it, you should!

If you’ve been living under a rock, then you don’t know about Iron Man. Based on a comic, it’s about Tony Stark(played by a very capable Robert Downey Jr.), a genius, and owner of Stark Industries, the world’s premier weapons developer and manufacturer. Stark lives a high profile lifestyle, with many women, drinks, and generally having a lot of fun. He’s kept in check by his personal assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow), Obidaiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), and Jim Rhodes (Terrance Howard).

So what is our conflict? Well, Stark is somewhere in the Middle East, demonstrating his new Jericho missile to potential buyers. On his way back to the base, his convoy of Humvees gets attacked, and he is kidnapped by terrorists. After he regains consciousness, Stark discovers that he has been saved from deadly shrapnel, and is being held captive in order to assemble Jericho missles for the terrorists. Not interested in doing that, Stark instead works on his own project to escape, a suit of armor powered by a mini arc-reactor, a Stark creation.

After his return, he continues to work on further developing the suit of armor, as well as his arc reactor. However, after seeing the devastation that his weapons can cause, Stark decides that he will no longer create weapons that may end up in the hands of terrorists. Instead, he will use his technology to create a more peaceful world. Despite his efforts, Stark soon realizes that there are many against him in his crusade… and he must fight to achieve this goal…

No spoilers here, per usual, although if you’ve read the comic books, you already have a pretty decent idea of what is going to happen. As I’ve said before, I enjoyed this film very much. It had great special effects, a great lead actor, and was very true to the Iron Man story.

One thing I’ll disagree with some people on is the performance of Gwenyth Paltrow as Pepper Potts. I thought she was capable at the role, and I enjoyed her performance. It wasn’t Oscar-worthy or anything like that, but it was good. She played the role very well! There are some differences of opinion over at Random Ramblings of a Demented Doorknob. Of course, my opinion is the only one that matters, so…

Overall, I’d highly suggest that you see this. It definitely opened up the summer movie blockbuster season with a bang, and I’m hoping the rest of the season will deliver. We’ve got a ton of options, so lets get out there and see em! If you’ve seen Iron Man, what did you think? My final rating is below:

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