Iron Man Review

I’ve known about the Iron Man movie for years now, I saw the trailer long before it premiered during the Superbowl, but still had very little anticipation built up for the movie. It seemed that a good Marvel super-hero movie hadn’t come out since Spider-Man 2, and Batman Begins was the only other super-hero movie that was any good between Spiderman 2 and Iron Man. So it was safe to believe that Iron Man was going to tread the road most traveled and end up like Catwomen, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Electra…damn, so much potential…how was it all screwed up?
Then one day in my Web Design class I was looking at Rottentomatoes and low and behold…Iron Man was marked with a tomato–and not just a 51% tomato, an unbelievable mid 80’s% tomato. Wow. Rottentomatoes is very critical of films, and aside from obscure documentaries there are very little movies that get that high of a score. Iron Man had just achieved my interest. In the coming week I watched as more and more reviews were being tallied up to see where Iron Man stood and to my confounded surprise, and growing anticipation, Iron Man was at nearly 95% by the time I left to see it on Friday. I was REALLY looking forward to this movie.
I have a rule about movie trailers: If I already know I’m going to anticipate the movie, I will NOT watch the trailer for it. An example would be Indiana Jones 4; I haven’t watched the trailers for that one. But if it’s a movie I know nothing about, I’m going to watch the trailer at least once. I find that too many times movie trailers are more of the foil of a movie then acting, stories, special effects, bad lines, etc. And the trailers and TV spots for Iron Man was exactly that. It ruined what could have rivaled Spiderman 2 as the best Marvel movie so far.
I had seen the Iron Man trailer numerous times on TV and previews for other movies, since Rush Hour 2 came out I believe. And, I’ll give credit to the editor for the fact that he/she made the movie look pretty damn cool, especially with Black Sabbath’s Iron Man playing. But within the trailer were nearly all the cool parts of the movie, so seeing Tony Stark dodge a tank shell and to then blow it up with a small wrist-rocket wasn’t as enjoyable as it should have been. Robert Downey Jr. did an amazing job playing Tony Stark, and I don’t think I can think of a better actor for the part, yet almost all of his witty lines were ruined in the trailers. Something needs to be done about the trailer issue.
Trailer trouble aside, Iron Man was in fact a decent movie. I would be careful to title it a super-hero movie though, as there is really only two scenes where I can remember Stark pulling off a super heroic stunt: saving the jet-fighter pilot and killing the rebels that were about to kill some guy. That’s it. There really wasn’t even a villain in this movie. But I understand that the origin movie is about how the person became a super-hero, so ill let it slide, but still, that didn’t stop Spiderman 1 or X-men 1 from having a good villain storyline…
But with the lack of a villain, there was good acting. There wasn’t one moment where I cringed at a line, or was able to guess at a coming line. I still laugh at the cameos by Stan Lee, although by now I should expect it, but I always forget during a new Marvel movie. And the special effects, such as the jet scene, were pretty well played out. Yet there was one bad egg out of the dozen: one scene where Stark used flamethrowers to engulf a rebel’s camp looked overdone and almost “made-for-TV-movie”-isc.
If I hadn’t seen the trailer eighty million times, Iron Man would have been a completely different movie for me. I tried to watch it like I hadn’t seen the trailer, but when there are only about 7 minutes of really cool stuff, and you take away 4 of those minutes, there is only so much cool left…and that really rusted up Iron Man.
7.5/10