What can I say, this movie shows just how good it can be to take a popular old comic and turn it in to a movie.

I’ll put my hand up right now as a big comic fan, I don’t still collect (too busy blogging nowadays), but I used to collect comics big time, I still have a large collection of X-men, Spidey, 2000AD etc.

We’ve had some excellent comic to movie conversions over the last few years, the X-Men and Spiderman being good examples, but who else liked Hell Boy? I did…

So there’s two questions I wanted answered from the movie…

a. is IronMan a good conversion from the comic?
&
b. Is it a good movie that non comic fans would enjoy?

well, I’m not going to try and keep you in suspense.

a. whilst I enjoyed the original ironman comic, it wasn’t one of my favorites, but the movie changed my mind.

I enjoyed both the x-men movies and the spiderman movies, but IronMan beats them!

It’s got kick ass action, although perhaps not quite enough, and it’s got wicked humor, AND it’s even got a plot, well more than a lot of hollywood movies nowadays…

It is true to the comic, or at least true enough for my taste, and there’s so much room for sequels they’ve gotta be done, I hope!

b. I decided the best way to text out “b” was to drag a mate along who’s never been in to comics, and did he enjoy it..?

He told me tonight that he’d happily go and watch it at the cinema again, and he doesn’t like spending money to movies, let alone the same one twice, so I take that as a big vote of approval from the non “comic” aspect.

and I have to agree, if I’d never read the comic it wouldn’t matter, it’s a damn good movie.

Robert Downey Jnr plays Tony Stark to perfection, he’s got the right kind of dry wit to pull it off, and he takes immense fun out of being a super hero, instead of the usual soul searching and angst, Tony Stark actually enjoys it, which ads a great element to the film.
It’s remenicent of the first batman movie where Batman was played by Michael Keaton, who physically was not perfect for the role, but pulled it off big time because of the mad look in his eyes and his “presence” in the character.

Rob does the same thing, but perhaps even better…

Jeff Daniels was also a surprise, I’ve not seen him do a bad guy before and he did it well, although it took me a moment or two to even recognise him.

Then of course there’s Gwyneth Paltrow, who makes Tony Stark’s PA, Pepper Potts, not just very attractive, but also smart, sexy and a believable part of the plot. I did mention that this is a “comic” conversion movie that actually has a plot didn’t I..?

The only negative I can think of to fire at this movie is that it could have had more action, there were some quieter moments, they weren’t wasted or boring, but IronMan could have kicked some more ass…

Tags: DVD's

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