So on Thursday at 8:00, I went to an advance screening of the new Robert Downey Junior (not pictured above) driven Iron Man, also starring Gwynneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard and The Dude…but bald. First of all, this movie is just plain awesome. This movie is in no way a kid’s superhero movie…not even a little bit, and for that I am thankful. Think how much more awesome X2 was than X-Men - all because the themes and characters all grew up and started playing like adults in X2. This is not more apparent about Stark/Iron Man when he does one thing which separates him from Superman, Batman, or Spider-Man: Iron Man will fucking kill you. Plain and simple, if you get in the way, Iron Man doesn’t care about your jerkoff face, your jerkoff life or you, jerkoff. He will punch you through a brick wall.

Anyways, the casting, acting, script and directing by Favreau are all brilliant; beginning with how Favreau doesn’t waste any time setting up who Tony Stark is - RDJ is so good in this role, you know exactly who Tony Stark is the very moment he steps on screen. He is cocky, slick, brilliant, a little naive, and basically a big kid who likes big toys and who cares little for others. It’s fascinating seeing how and why the Tony you are introduced to can become this hero with a conscience - Iron Man - who is trying to save the world from the evil he helped to put there.

If I have a complaint with the movie, it’s that the bad guy (extremely minor spoiler, I guess), Obidiah Stane, just makes no sense. How/why he goes from a millionaire (billionaire?) industrialist/CEO/buddy/family friend to murderer is unralistic and stupid. I mean it just wouldn’t happen (even in an unrealistic comic book world where men put on metal pants and fly around). But it’s the Dude. So it’s ok I guess.

I was never the biggest comic book nerd as a kid, and I certainly knew very little about Iron Man (I liked Spider-Man, Superman and Batman), but this movie is not only exceedingly enjoyable for the casual fan (like me), but gives many nods to characters and events steeped deeply in the Iron Man lore. After a quick readthrough of some Wikipedia pages on Iron Man, I noted that the movie gives subtle tips of its cap to classic elements of the comics by including S.H.I.E.L.D., the Mandarin, and War Machine, all without losing the casual fan like myself.

At any rate, I don’t want to spoil any of the plot, but go see this movie. It is excellent, and in fact, I put it in the top five superhero movies of all time, which I rank in this order:

1. Spider-Man 2
2. X-Men 2
3. Batman Begins
4. Iron Man
5. Spider-Man

I’m not kidding, although this is an origin tale, the origin itself is not glossed over by cutting to some quick montage like Bruce Wayne building various bat-accessories or of Clark Kent running/flying through a field in Kansas. Stark becoming Iron Man is a hard fought lesson, with many trials and errors, and the way Favreau translates all that, along with the change that the character of Tony Stark goes through, to the big screen is nothing short of masterful for a hero movie.

Four and a half stars.