Iron Man : 5 of 5

Although I'm not totally immersed in the comic book adventures of Iron Man, I've certainly read enough of his stories both alone and with the Avengers (plus watched the cartoon TV series!) to be somewhat of a fan, so I was really excited to see this movie. Along with movies like the first Spider-Man and Batman Begins, Iron Man is a truly fantastic superhero movie that manages to keep both comic book geeks and general movie-goers happy, and I loved it! The first few scenes to establish the playboy character of Tony Stark are absolutely hilarious, and Robert Downey Jr. does a great job playing him, and later in the film really shines when he turns around Stark's emotions to reveal his new life purpose as a hero. It was nice to Gwenyth Paltrow again, and the short romance scenes had nice chemistry, I thought. But of course, the real star is the Iron Man suit (as well as Tony's other gadgets), which includes a fantastic progression of development and testing sequences (perfectly played for laughs), and watching Iron Man blaze across the sky (especially when pursued by other jets) is thrilling! The origin story has been updated to Afghanistan, but all of the elements are there so I think comic book purists are satisfied. As for me, I'm just glad I noticed the cartoon series theme song as a cell phone ringtone! I'm definitely excited about seeing future movies in this series, especially if they start to involve SHIELD more, or even the Avengers (as they hinted in the bonus scene at the end of the credits!). It's amazing to look at a great movie like Iron Man compared to crap like Fantastic Four - I'm just thankful someone in Hollywood can do superheroes right!