Iron Man (review Part 1 of 2)

Iron Man (review Part 1 of 2)

Iron Man is a smartly written superhero movie that proves that Marvel still has steam in their stride. Iron Man is what Spiderman III should have been, fun and cool. While the movie has some pacing and story problems in the third act, this shouldn’t keep you away from the movie.

Jon Favreau directs this origin superhero movie. While he doesn’t have the style of Sam Raimi or Christopher Nolan, he does bring the importance of a smart script. And with a movie like Iron Man you don’t need a lot of style, you just need cool crap on the screen. Favreau never forgets that. When it calls for it, you can tell Favreau let his actors improvise lines, and that is the director’s strong point.

For about 2/3 of the script, the writing is very tight, sharp, and funny. There is a complete contrast between the fun-loving side of Tony’s world and the dark side with his imprisonment in Afghanistan. The story handles both portions of the film well.

But that brings me to the main problem with the film. When the real villain shows up, the movie loses a lot of its steam in the process. Without giving it away, the main villain dons on an armor suit to fight Iron Man, but the plot twist involving the person behind the villain suit isn’t convincing. While not as bad as Venom in Spiderman III, there are some issues with the bad guy and his motives in the story. I just didn’t find it very compelling.

But, I understand why the villain is there. You see this is an origin story and this villain is merely there to a plot device. We get to see a guy reborn and take his first steps to becoming a hero.