Well, by some kind of fluke chance the local Vue Cinema was running preview showings of this long anticipated film today, the day before it official release date, so I collared a mate and headed off !

I have to admit, I have no idea what-so-ever what the Iron Man comics are like, which will probably make a few fans spit at their monitors if they somehow stumble across this site, but ill go on record straight away in saying that I think the film was awesome !

Robert Downey Jr (kinda typecast as the witty sarcastic loner) played the role perfectly, everything about it actually fit into place, for once I actually found myself watching a film and not screaming at the screen about how in real life, given the circumstances, no person would ever do that.

Overall the story-line consists of Tony Stark (RDJ), the CEO of stark industries, one of Americas top weapons manufacturers going on a demonstration trip to Afghanistan (yea, PC go nuts with that one lol) and showing off a new weapons system which pretty much blows the crap out of everything in sight. Alas, he is captured by some local ‘freedom fighters’ who set him on as their personal weapons expert and decide to give him access to pretty much anything he asks for (mistake). Well, suffice to say he kinda refuses to build them the weapons of mass destruction they were after, and instead builds a prototype personal Armour suit to escape !

Well after his absolutely cool escape scene, where about half of the Afghanistan rebels are thrown through walls, he’s rescued by the US military and returned home, where his incarceration has embedded him with a deeper understanding of the pain and suffering his weapons developments have been causing, and decides to right this wrong by perfecting his suit into a perfect hybrid of man and machine ! Hence Iron Man is born… Well, given all that, you can pretty much understand why a mass of visual effects are involved in this film, as well as some seriously pleasing explosions. Gwyneth Paltrow even manages to come over quite well as the poor defenseless Pepper Potts, Tony’s executive assistant, but some scenes do scream out ‘Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow’ not sure if this was the persona they were aiming for, but it was defiantly there !

All things being said;

Story line : 7/10

Visual Effects 8/10

Characters : 8/10

Explosions : 9/10

Acting : 6.5/10

Bad Guy : 6/10

Overall Score : 7/10

Final opinion - Defiantly a film ill be getting on Blu-ray as soon as its released, for no other reason that the jet fighter chase scene