So how good was Iron Man? I couldn't tell you. He was only on screen about 5 minutes.
Marvel is making a lot of money lately. There's no doubt about that. And after the crapfest that was Spider-Man 3 and Fantastic Four 2 I wasn't expecting much from Iron Man. And I didn't get much. I'm probably going to get a lot of heat; Iron Man has generated a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. That's Spider-Man 2 numbers. That's like the Tom Brady of superhero movies. I, personally, just don't get it. I'm not a hater, but I'm not a lover. Here's why: Where's Iron Man?
This isn't so much a super hero story, but an origin story. It does this very well. Robert Downey Junior is perfect for the part and seems to be having a good time on screen. After all the drugs and alcohol and other stuff, it's good for him to remind us that he can act. Act like Tony Stark. As Iron Man, not so much. In fact all of the characters fit well, even Gwenyth Paltrow even though she just looks like an older version of Mary Jane. The only one who doesn't is Jeff Bridges' character. He is trying WAY to hard to pull off the evil badass thing and it just ends up looking clichéd and silly. It's like when an actor is sucking in a play and all the other actors are trying to cover for him, glancing at each other back and forth.
See the problem I have with Iron Man is that it's not really about Iron Man, which ironically seems to be why every other critic in the world loved it. This is a movie about Tony Stark. It's a movie about how a man changes emotionally after witnessing the effects of his business. It feels genuine, and Downey pulls it off flawlessly. Iron Man himself just feels like a side note, and that's why the film suffers so much. Iron Man is only on screen for about seven minutes total, and the whole thing feels like it's about an hour and a half of setup with about a half hour of movie. It jumps straight from Act I to Act III with nothing in between.
Iron Man shows up about 2/3 through the movie, and again at its tail end. And that's it.
It feels like a prequel.
It feels like this is but a prelude to something grander in the future, just a stepping stone, and though it is decent enough, it just feels incomplete and rushed and spends too much time concentrating on pre-Iron Man. In my opinion, since they knew they'd be making a sequel, they should've called this movie Stark, and have the next movie be called Iron Man. This is not Iron Man. This is Iron Man Begins. It's an origin story that focuses very little on its title character and squarely on the man beneath that mask. And while this does not kill what is still a decent movie, it definitely hurts it, even if only in my eyes.
Score: 6/10
