Iron Man—Tony Stark isn’t quite like Bruce Wayne. He didn’t witness his parentss’ death (though his mother is never mentioned), but the main plot is much the same. Placed in deadly peril, Tony builds a way to escape and to avenge the death of a friend who helped him. In a society obsessed with toys, Mr. Stark has the coolest of them all, including a CAD/CAM setup to die for, a data search capacity similar to that in Minority Report (a system similar to that is currently under development), and a nifty robot named Jeeves.
After his escape, Tony returns to redirect the focus of his company. Unfortunately, changing corporate culture is not as easy as it looks. The terms of a hostile takeover end up becoming fatal to a number of people. Jeff Bridges is great in the role of Obadiah Stane who appears to be a loyal partner, although there are hints that he is not entirely comfortable in Tony’s shadow. Gwyneth Paltrow is deliberately less glamorous than usual as the able personal assistant ‘Pepper’ Potts, but plays a key role in affairs (Tony should marry her now!). Terrence Howard is true blue as the liaison who coordinates Stark’s work with the military. Whoever is the voice of Jeeves is perfect, while the second star of the show, the Suit, performs brilliantly. Stan Lee is cute in his cameo as Hugh Hefner.
This movie is action oriented without being stupid, touches on many real issues in the world today, and shows off some seriously cool toys (of which the Jericho missile system is one). I strongly recommend this movie, and hope they make a sequel. Note—stay for the credits! There’s an extra goodie that this former Merry Marvelite had a lot of fun with.
And yes, I know this review is absurdly late, and it's on DVD now. Well, watch it anyway, especially if you have a bigger screen TV (which we do, now, a 32-incher which is marked improvement over the 19" one we watched for several months after the old one died).