Who’d have thought – here we have an actor taking the role of a comic book hero who’s flawed.

 

Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man has a problem with substance abuse (drinking), and tended to be a womanizer, unable to see what he had before him. Well, that and he is supposed to be brilliant.

 

Now, we have Robert Downey Jr. – notorious for having issues with substance abuse, being a womanizer, but, despite this, also being considered an exceptional actor.

 

Do you really think it was all that difficult for Mr. Downey to get into character? I personally think not.

 

Because of this, I feel that he was perfect for the role. It fit him like the proverbial glove. Like him in real life, Tony Stark is flawed, but essentially a likeable man. They both are witty and charming.

 

Although, lets face it, it took the writers to come up with the side splitting lines that were uttered throughout the movie.

 

Yes, the movie had plenty of good laughs – some at the expense of the title character.

 

Like many of the super hero movies that have come out over the past near decade, this one really just covered the origin of the character, Iron Man.

 

Lets face it, not everyone out there has read comics. I’d go as far as saying that there are many people who, when they heard of Iron Man, would think of the song written by Ozzy Osbourne for Black Sabbath.

 

Others wouldn’t have had a clue either way.

 

Of course, this reviewer knew exactly what the movie was about, even though I can honestly say that I never read many of the Iron Man comics growing up, or Avengers for that matter, of which his character played a fairly large role.

 

But I had enough knowledge going into the movie to understand what I was getting into. I guess it also helped that I watched the animated Iron Man movie that was released on DVD in early 2007.

 

So, anyhow, this movie was the origin of Iron Man. It set up the franchise, because, lets face it, like Batman, X-men, Spider Man – we are going to see more of this character in years to come. Hell, they were talking sequels on the net even before the movie was released!

 

As with any good origin movie, Iron Man introduced the title character, and gave the audience a glimpse into his flawed life, and what made him the man who he is. It also introduced many other characters that are important to Tony Stark in the comics, such as Pepper Potts, Jim Rhodes, and Obadiah Stane (although in his case, I’m simply guessing that he was in the comics and played the role in the comics that he played in the movie).

 

Oh, and now for the other star of the movie… the special effects. Years ago, it would have been exceptionally difficult and not to mention expensive, to produce this movie, to do the whole powered armour justice.

 

Years past, they would have probably have had to make the movie with the actor wearing a crude costume. Hey, Downey had a cool costume to wear in this movie, and although the majority of the film was done using computer graphics, the times when he was on screen wearing the suit, it looked very cool.

 

Sory, I digress…

 

As I said, the special effects were awesome to behold.

 

It certainly does make one wonder how long it will be before we are able to produce that type of powered armour for our soldiers, doesn’t it?

 

One thing is for certain, a great many breakthroughs in technology will be required first.

 

But, until then, we have our movies to bring it to life… and a future franchise in Iron Man.

 

Was it good? Yup, I enjoyed it immensely. Is it worth seeing a second time? Absolutely!

 

5 out of 5