Iron Man

Last night I was invited to attend a screening of the new Iron Man movie, which opens in theaters tomorrow (Friday). As a comic book reader and huge fan of comic book movies I've been looking forward to this movie for years and headed to the theater yesterday both excited and nervous. Nervous because let's face it, for every great comic book movie, like X-Men or Spider-Man, there are just as many disappointments (ahem Elektra, Hulk).

I'm happy to say that Iron Man was a blast! The movie is an adaptation of Marvel's comic book series about a flawed billionaire weapons manufacturer - Tony Stark - who after a life-threatening experience, creates a suit of armor and takes to the sky to fight the bad guys. I have to admit, Iron Man has never been one of the comics on my reading list so I can't say how true to the comic the movie was. What I can say is that this is a great action movie with amazing special effects and a fantastic cast, which is led by Robert Downey Jr., as Tony Stark/Iron Man. Downey was perfect as the smug, jet-setting, playboy and the rest of the cast, including Terrence Howard (Jim Rhodes), Jeff Bridges (Obadiah Stane) and Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts) were equally as impressive. The only odd casting was the film's director, Jon Favreau, playing Stark's driver/buddy who was in every scene of the first 15 minutes of the film then disappears entirely without any reason given as to why.

The movie opens in theaters Nationwide tomorrow.