Iron Man

Started out with lots of promise. Robert Downey is just the right measure of insouciance, narcissism and quick witted humor to make him the perfect not-quite super-not-quite-hero. Bumbling through life with equal parts dumb luck and aimless purpose works for Downey. His performance in front of the Senate Committee on something-or-other was perfect. Mickey Roark pulls it off as the villain for the first 30 minutes or so.

OK, Two AC/DC songs work well, the action scenes are OK but start to get pretty busy near the end. Then about the time the plot should start taking off, things fall apart and the film never recoups. Still playing “The Wrestler”, Mickey Roark turns into a mumbling dumbwaiter. Gwyneth Paltrow fusses and fumes and never shows anything put pretty nice legs. Scarlett Johansson doesn’t pull off the Emma Peel routine. Sam Rockwell is too smarmy for too long. The rest of the actors are entirely forgettable and most of their participation detracts from the plot.

I think it showed promise for about 45 minutes, then started bogging down, the characters lost their attraction and it went up in a big fireball. Robert Downey is as good as it gets for portraying iterations of his probable basic personality. I would like to see him with better direction and screenplay. Mickey Roark is a very strange duck in real life as well, and this comes across on the screen. It’s time to move on to new characters.

I think this film is “Just OK”, and would be a good candidate to wait till it comes out on DVD.

I give it two and a half of five palladium crystals, wearing out at about the same rate this film does after the first 45 minutes.