Iron Man Review

Iron Man...hum...I have to be honest here folks, I wasn't that impressed with the movie. I don't mean to sound nasty here but I actually found the first part of the movie pretty boring. The movie starts out with Stark, (Robert Downey) who looks absolutely horrible! Did I mention how horrible he looks??? I guess all that wild Hollywood life has turned a once nice looking man into eeewwwwww!!!!!!  Sorry, I got a little side-tracked.  Anyway as I was saying, in the movie it shows Stark in a Hummer, being escorted by the military to some undisclosed place, (all we know at this point is that it's someplace in hostile territory)  for some sort of meeting. I guess that's supposed to be the suspenseful part.

In the next scene you see bombs exploding, shots fired, soldiers getting killed and blown to bits. Stark realizes he's all alone in the Hummer and decides to make a run for it. As he makes it to a rock pile, a bomb is dropped and lands a few feet away from him. In seconds the bomb explodes and he's covered with shrapnel and he loses consciousness.

 In the next scene you see Stark's life or glimpses of things flashing in his mind until all of a sudden he awakens only to see he's in some dark, dank cave. There is another man in there with him who claims he's the one who saved Stark's life by removing metal from his battered body. (Sorry, I forgot his name, that's how memorable his part in the movie was. I'll just call him 'the guy')  But there is this lit, round thing in the middle of Stark's chest and he's hooked up to a car battery. The man in the cave claims that is the only thing keeping Stark alive because it's some sort of magnetic thing keeping the metal pieces from gravitating towards his heart...which will kill him.

Then enters the bad guys. The dirty, sweaty terrorists scum bag guys who start making demands in what ever language their speaking. The guy translates and tell Stark the bad guys want him to make bombs and weapons. Then enters vital info telling us all that Stark's job is to make weapons of mass distruction for the military. It's a family business and Stark took it over after the father passed away.

Of course Stark refuses so he's tortured by nearly drowning him in water. That is, until he gives in and claims he'll make the weapons. So in the mean time Stark and they guy secretly create a new and improved magnetic thing for his chest. One where he won't have to be teathered to a car battery. Then instead of making the bombs the bad guy wants, Stark creates a metal suit out of junk and scraps, that will withstand bullets and will make him fly.

Are you bored yet?  This was all in the first half hour.......see what I mean?

In the end of this part of the movie the guy gets killed and Stark and his new suit of fire spitting, flying armor escape and make it to safety where he crashes in the desert and is magically found by the good guys.

In the next half hour, enters Stark's assistant...Pepper Potts. (Can you say or see the resemblance to 007 and Miss Money Penny?) She knows all about him, admires him, is smitten with him...blah...blah...blah. Nothing new here.

Stark is supposed to be fantastically brilliant and wealthy. He's arrogant, selfish, egotistical and so on. He's also irresponsible. People depend on him and he's never there. Like for meetings or press conferences, awards and so on. There is an assistant, (Sorry I forgot his name too. But he turns out to be a bad guy too so I'll call him bad guy from here on out) this bad guy was Stark senior's right hand man and kept the position when the son took over the business.

When Stark has finally returned to his home he calls a press conference where he shocks the world by telling them he's had a change of heart. He's seen all the weapons his company mass produces, seen the destruction and pain they have caused innocent people. So he has a change of heart and decides he's not going to create any more weapons. Of course bad guy steps in and tells the world that Stark has a bad case of Post traumatic stress issues and needs some rest, that he doesn't mean what he's saying.

Then behind Stark's back, (while he's perfecting the magnetic thing in his chest and creating a new flying Iron suit) bad guy is selling weapons to the terrorists. It turns out that bad guy was the one who ordered the hit on Stark. Why? Well so he can take over the business, of course. Nothing new here either.

Miss Pepper Potts catches herself staring longingly at her boss, Stark, who catches her. Then he catches himself staring longingly at Pepper, who also catches him. I didn't feel the pull of any kind of romance there. In fact I thought it was a little juvenile. But that's also when Stark realizes his right hand man is a bad guy. Stark really works hard on creating his new suit. The previews you see is about the extent of his creating it.

In the mean time the terrorists who had Stark in the beginning of the movie have gathered all the pieces of the scrap suit he created the first time and put it all together. They call bad guy to come see it and want him to deliver an army of the suits.

Now on to the last...maybe 20 minutes of the movie. Stark's suit is a success.

Bad guy has secretly created another suit using Stark's idea...but of course it's a much bigger suit. At this point when I saw the bad guy in his bigger, badder suit I immediately thought of Robo Cop. Remember the movie where Robo and Kane had their big fight? Well this is what happened as well. Even to the point where Stark jumped onto the back of the bad guy suit's back and yanks some componant out of the back of it's head...just like Robo. Definitely nothing new here!

The most exciting parts of the movie were the previews. I took my 10 year old grandson and paid $15.00 to see this movie. He liked it and gave it a 9, only for the action scenes. The rest, he thought was boring, as did I. He didn't like the ending because it was left open for another.  And Stark admitted he was Iron Man. His arrogance shone through.

It was an OK movie and if I had to rate it from 1 to 10 with 10 being the best, I would have to give it a 6. Lets just hope the next movie has more action, better special effects and maybe select someone better suited to play Stark. I didn't care for Downey in this part.