In Continuum.

Let's begin this movie review with this one thing in your head: forget about all the other comic superheroes. Iron Man is the superhero to rule them all, nobody is as cool as he is - no one. Batman comes close, but Bruce Wayne is just sad and pissed off all the time about Gotham City, about that guy that shot his parents, about everything in this world. He is a little too neurotic for my taste, and he really should spend some time in Tony Stark's Malibu mansion and hang out with him for a little bit. They are both very rich men, they are both very eager to save the world from bad guys, but Tony does it with so much style that even Bruce Wayne pales in comparison. Before this film, I've never liked Iron Man, I saw him as a man who walked around in a tin can that shot missiles - big deal. This film changed everything, and it has thus become the best comic superhero movie ever to hit the silver screen, here's why. 

Iron Man begins with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), the billionaire arms maker, traveling through the desert of Afghanistan with a convoy of U.S. soldiers after a showcase of his brand new invention - The Jericho. Things go wrong halfway through their journey however, and Tony Stark becomes kidnapped by a bunch of terrorists, who insisted on him to build them the same missiles that he demonstrated to the U.S. army personnel earlier on in the day. So they kept him in a cave with a whole bunch of materials and tools to work with. Tony Stark, however, built himself the first version of Iron Man, kicked the butts of the terrorists and got himself out of the cave only to be rescued by his friend, Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard). Back home, he is met by his secretary Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and his take-no-prisoner business partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) who welcomed him with opened arms. Tony, however, after seeing what his weapons have done to the third world countries, decided that he'd stop making weapons of mass destruction. Instead, he invested his money and time on a new and improved version of the armored suit he built in the caves, and that pissed a whole lot of business partners off.

First of all, I have never liked Iron Man when I was a child, and that was certainly the case throughout the better part of my life. I mean, the cartoon version of Iron Man was boring as hell, and the cartoon version of Tony Stark had a little mustache thing going on on his upper lip that made him look more like a street-side pickpocket. I didn't like the idea of a man dressed in heavy armor, flying around and fighting bad guys at all. Back then, it was all about superheroes with superpowers, or men in tight suits controlling giant robots. I was naive, I should have spent some time reading up on Iron Man. Thankfully, this film changed it all for me, and Iron Man is officially one of the best, if not the best, superhero movie I have ever seen. Yes, I said that even with Batman and Superman in mind, or even that scrawny Spiderman whom I have never liked very much in the first place. 

Here's the thing, I am sick and tired of superheroes with superpowers. It is always about some genetic mutation or an experiment gone wrong, and it is the very same powers and the very same story line over and over and over again in every superhero movie. X-Men was based on a bunch of mutated students who had special abilities, the Hulk was the result of an experiment gone wrong, Spiderman was the result of an accident that involved a mutated spider, and Superman's a freaking alien from outer space who's practically invincible. It is not just the superheroes that I am completely sick of, but the villains usually begin with the very same fate as well. The Green Lantern was the result of an experiment gone wrong, so was Doctor Octopus' character. The Hulk's father was also an experiment gone wrong, a person who eventually became his nemesis, and most of the villains in Batman were also villains because they met with accidents somewhere in Gotham City. Even without their masks or their suits, the main characters are also boring as hell. Peter Parker should grow a spine, Bruce Wayne should get over his dead parents, Bruce Banner should take a chill pill. 

It just seems like in the comic book universe, experiments are usually conducted by either careless or crazy scientists, and the result usually affects themselves, others, or both. It is tiring and most of all, boring, to sit through two hours of the same thing over and over again, which was why I have never liked most superhero movies. Batman was good, because he was just a rich white man with a lot of gadgets to play around with, it made him more realistic than all the other superheroes. Still, he just cannot get over his past most of the time, and his voice is always in a strangely low register. All that changed drastically, because here comes Tony Stark, or Iron Man to the rescue. Here is a guy who is rich, who is charming, and most of all he is a pain in the ass. However, he goes through a very believable transformation that does not involve nuclear waste or failed experiments. He merely grew a conscience, an internal change that was more believable than all the other superheroes. And also, here is a man blessed with a brilliant a mind, a man who used his smarts to save people from the bad guys. The other superheroes got their powers easy, they got themselves involved in accidents or they were born with it. Tony Spark didn't, he didn't even need to have those dreadful things occur to him. He had the brain, he had the money, and he wanted to kill bad guys. 

Sure, Val Kilmer was great as Batman, George Clooney was laughable, but Christian Bale brought the franchise back to life. Tobey Maguire was fitting for the role of Peter Parker, but he became too emotional and neurotic in the third movie that he reminded me of an actor in a soap opera. Now, we have Robert Downey Jr, an actor whom I have respected for a very long time, nailing the character of Tony Stark right down to the very last inch of things. Everybody loves to hate Tony Stark, and Robert Downey Jr. does that with such ease that you start to think that this man is in fact such a pain in the ass, a bastard with a killer smile and a whole lot of charisma. But then he brings to the character so much life, that we start to sympathize with him as the story progressed, and not to mention his deadpan humor is simply put - brilliant. While the supporting cast took a, well, supporting role in this film, I must say that Gwyneth Paltrow looked awesome in the whole office lady outfit, and Jeff Bridges was absolutely hatable in the film. Very well performances from all around. 

This is not a superhero movie that happens to have dramatic elements. This is a dramatic movie that happens to be a superhero film. The director Jon Favreau very effectively gave the characters life in this film, and he blended the character development so well with the action that it was almost seamless and believable. More than just the action, the director took a different route introducing the main villain in this film. We are not served with a conventional dish of a villain being somehow offended by the protagonist or some other overused script like that. The villain here is believable, plausible, menacing, and most of all he is not mentally insane. Other than the brilliant character development presented in this film, I thought the director also injected a favorable amount of romance into the story. It was not overdone like it usually is in most superhero movies (Superman Returns, anyone?), but he merely teased us with the possibilities. I thought the relationship between Pepper and Tony was simply, well, convincing. That is not to mention the little hints from the director regarding the sequel to the film - by the way, do remain in your seats until after the credits. 

I cannot begin to tell you just how brilliant the special effects are in this movie. The best kind of special effects are those that do not jump out of the screen to say hello to the audience. What I mean by that is that special effects should not completely take over the story, but remain merely in a supporting role. In this film, it is obvious that the top-notch effects have taken a supportive role in creating a character called Tony Stark. The part of the film when Tony Stark suits up for the very first time is probably the most awesome transformation scene I have ever seen. Forget about the giant robots in Transformers, this is the type of transformation I am talking about, the kind with style and backed up by cool rock and roll music. I am going to download this film and watch everything in slow motion, it is that cool. Hell, even Tony Stark's computer at home is cooler than any of the superheroes I have seen. 

This film, however, is not without its flaws. This film is obviously not going to be the one and only Iron Man movie, and the producers probably knew that while making this film. This is probably why the most part of this film was devoted to the characters as well as the introductory nature of the story. Some may complain that too much time was taken up to convince us about the plausibility of this fictional world. I feel, however, that this is merely the first act of many more acts to come, which is why the "crammed" feeling in terms of the story can be forgiven. Also, I felt that the final battle scene that involved Iron Man and Iron Monger could have been longer as well as more elaborated. A lot more things could have been done to the action sequences to make it even better than it already is. While Sam Raimi went over the top with the action sequences in Spiderman 3, Jon Favreau seems to have been to selfish with the action. I felt that a lot more could have been seen in this film, but then he may merely be saving the best for the sequels - who knows?

At the end of the day, Iron Man beats all the other superheroes, face down. In theory, however, there are probably a whole lot of other superheroes more powerful than him. Still, if Iron Man is not the strongest, he is probably the coolest. Nobody can destroy a tank as cool as Iron Man, and not a lot of protagonists can take off their suits and still be cool. Peter Parker and Clark Kent goes back to wimp mode whenever they are not wearing their costumes, but Tony Stark doesn't sway that way. He is just awesome, all thanks to Robert Downey Jr. This film is a must-watch for Iron Man fans, for non-Iron Man fans, for the movie fans, for anybody who likes a good movie. Forget about all the other superhero movies, this one is going to blow them out of the waters (Unless we take V into consideration).

9.5/10