My Morning Diversion

Since my studying before noon is only about 10% effective, I decided it was a good idea to go see Iron Man this morning. I’m all about efficiency. So I grabbed myself some French toast sticks, stuck them in my cargo pants and went to the 10:30 showing. Which was FULL. Why is the 10:30 showing full? Could be that other people are studying for Board exams as well. Or more likely, they appreciate the 5 dollar price as much as I do.

I hadn’t really intended to see Iron Man first run. I’d be surprised if he was in my top 25 superheroes. But my desire not to study, combined with surprisingly strong reviews (94% for a superhero movie? It must be good) convinced me to spare a couple hours. And it was pretty good.

Marvel does an excellent job throwing in little nods for the comic book faithful. Although I’m much less knowledgeable of Iron Man than say 25 other characters, I was pleasantly surprised with the foreshadowing of future events.

I think all the actors involved did fine work. I like Downey and enjoyed his performance. Tony Stark is a pretty fun character (much more so than his DC counterpart Bruce Wayne) so the movie rarely dragged. I’m traditionally not a big Paltrow fan (I think she’s great in Tenenbaums and ok in Running with Scissors and Mr. Ripley, but otherwise haven’t been impressed) but she did well. I think Terrence will be a good War Machine for Iron Man 2 (War Machine was a character introduced in the 90s to make Iron Man cooler) and he just had to sit through this film to make it to that one. Jeff Bridges had the unenviable task of playing the villain. Normally this is fine, but the fact is the Iron Man doesn’t really have any great villains. I'm sure Iron Man faithful would disagree, but I'm just not that interested in The Mandarin, Crimson Dynamo or Living Lasor.

All in all, a fun ride. It’s an escapist treat that’s well done, so likely worth your time. You only get 3 action scenes, but they're all pretty good and the repartee between Downey and Paltrow keeps your attention until the next thing blows up.

Here's War Machine. I bet my socks (a high value) that he'll make an appearance next time:



Things to watch for:
1. The best Stan Lee cameo yet.
2. The scene after the credits.
3. Shameless Burger King promotion. Which I saw while eating Burger King!