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Iron Man (2008) is undoubtedly the best superhero movie I have ever watched. Over the past few years, we have seen the onslaught of superhero movies. These have been brought to the silverscreen, adapted from the original comic books or cartoons. Most notably are the releases by Marvel including X-Men and Spider-Man, spawning a trilogy each. With the precedent set by these blockbusters, I went into the cinema with rather high expectations for this debutant.

Tony Stark was my childhood hero, and from the movie, it was easy to understand why. Tony Stark (played by the charismatic Robery Downey Jr) is the technological genius director of Stark Industries, a company specializing in manufacturing advanced state-of-the-art weaponry. He is suave, rich and a hit among females. During a trip to Afghanistan to promote a new weapon called the Jericho cluster-missile, Tony Stark’s military convoy was ambushed by terrorists. His bodyguards were killed and he was mortally injured in the battle. He was then captured and imprisoned by the terrorist group called Ten Rings. His fellow captive, Dr Ho Yinsen, managed to construct a device to repel shrapnel in his chest from puncturing his heart, keeping him alive temporarily. He was ordered to build the terrorists a new superweapon – an improved version of the Jericho missile.

However, Stark refused and instead proceeds to build a powerful set of armoured exoskeleton for himself behind their backs. He also built an ‘arc reactor’ from scratch, a small electro-magnetically-powered energy source that replaced Dr Yinsen’s device, and also doubling as a power source for his new armoured suit. Using the suit, Stark escapes, killing several terrorists but did not manage to prevent the death of Dr Yinsen. Despite crashing the suit, he is rescued by the United States Air Force. Upon his return, he retreats into his laboratory and begins construction of an all-new suit of armour and also an all-new improved version of the arc reactor to preserve his life and to power the new prototype suit.

Along the way, he discovers that Obadiah Stane (played by Jeff Bridges), who is his long-time friend and mentor, was secretly double-dealing – supplying Stark weaponry to both terrorists as well as the military. He also discovers that Stane was the one who hired the Ten Rings to eliminate him and that he is currently reverse-engineering his own suit of armour. Infuriated, he flew off in his suit to Afghanistan to destroy the Jericho missiles in possession of the terrorists as well as to save Dr Yinsen’s village. Stane eventually discovers Stark’s secret and robs him of his magnetic ‘heart’, leaving him to die. Stark manages to use his earlier arc reactor, which was never designed to power the current suit of armour, to combat Stane. He ultimately triumphs, but at great cost, overloading and detonating his company’s gigantic arc reactor and almost losing his life in the process.

I was very impressed by the choice of Robert Downey Jr to play Tony Stark. It was a very accurate portrayal of the flamboyant Tony Stark – arrogant, philandering and self-absorbed. He looked extremely natural playing the role, being charismatic but ‘schoolboyish’-ly awkward at times. Gwyneth Paltrow performed to her usual high standards as Pepper Potts, Tony Stark’s personal assistant and friend. Jeff Bridges deserves a mention for his commendable acting as the conniving Obadiah Stan. He was at times warm and seemingly sincere, but could change to become cold and vicious the next moment.

This film’s running time was reported to be 2 hours and 10 minutes, but I felt that it was too short. 2 hours and 10 minutes and still too short, sounds ludicrous but I feel it’s true. The entire plot was rather long to begin with and I felt that, at times, the story was being rushed through as if the producers were trying to save time. Character development became lacking as a result. More focus could be given as to why Obadiah Stane turned rogue after being the caring and protective mentor.

Graphically, this movie does not best that of Transformers, the other great movie adaptation in recent months. Nevertheless, fight scenes are highly entertaining. The armoured suit, no matter how ridiculous it sounded prior to the trailers being released, is indeed a marvelous work of computer-generated effects.

The mere thought of owning a device like that would send tech geeks around the world into a frenzy. I am sure that many of the males in the audience would be wishing they were Tony Stark after the movie, because I would give anything to lead his kind of life. With two more sequels in production, the world can be prepared for more Iron Man hype in the future. Iron Man (2008) is one of the best shows in 2008 thus far.

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