Loved it!
My son had told me that this was the superhero action movie of the year -- NOT The Dark Knight -- and now I know what he means. The good guys weren't perfect, the bad guys weren't Satan personified, and the plot unpredictable and halfway intelligent.
Robert Downey Jr obviously had a lot of fun with his double role as wealthy industrialist Tony Stark and Iron Man. Jeff Bridges equally seemed to relish playing jovial but obviously sleazy businessman/villain Obadiah Stane. And Gwenyth Paltrow, as Stark's ever patient and hardworking secretary Pepper Potts, had just the right amount of chemistry with her boss.
Kudos to comic writer-editor Stan Lee! And to Marvel Studios, who reacquired the rights in 2006 after the film had been "in development" since 1990 at Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox, and New Line Cinema. This was Marvel's first self-financed film, and the $574,049,094 worldwide box office gross shows that they made a wise move.
I just wish I had seen Iron Man on the big screen! DVDs like this just make we want to run out to buy a wide screen High Def TV. Iron Man was the first in a trilogy, with Iron Man 2 due out in April 2010. I hope it defies the usual downward trend for sequels and lives up to the standards of the first film.
