KEY POINTS:
Herald rating: * * *
Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Terence Howard
Director: Jon Favreau
Rating: M (medium level violence)
Running time: 126 mins
Screening: SkyCity, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas
Verdict: You'll believe Robert Downey Jr can fly. Just not quite high enough.
Now this one's out of the way, can't wait for the Iron Man movie. Because despite the title, this isn't really an Iron Man movie - it's a Tony Stark movie, one about the guy who through sheer technical bravura and financial clout turns himself into a man of steel.
Well yes, so did Batman. But whereas that last Batman Begins reworked the superhero's origin story into something thrilling that went beyond just how Bruce Wayne started working nights, this one makes its inception of Iron Man nearly the whole point of the exercise.
Which, for the most part, is fun enough, especially due to the unlikely casting of Robert Downey Jr as Stark, the boozy engineering genius arms-dealing playboy billionaire turned servo-powered robo-warrior.
Downey's manic wit is a special effect in itself and casting him as that rare superhero alter-ego - one with an actual ego - proves inspired.
So does the presence of Bridges as his duplicitous partner in the Stark industrial empire and Paltrow, who brings some wry dignity to the role of sexy secretary, despite being named Pepper Potts.
But after Downey's Stark has got the hang of the flying suit thing, Iron Man really doesn't have a lot to do. Sure there's some revenge to wreak, the inevitable nemesis showdown and a springboard for the sequel to bounce off.
But Iron Man is a movie of much set-up and hardly enough pay-off.
There is, of course, an action sequence or two but most are over in a fairly dull flash of CGI and panelbeating noises. Those start after Stark heads to Afghanistan (in the original comic it was Vietnam) for a weapons demonstration where he is captured by Talebanesque locals and ordered to make them one of his new rocket systems despite having acquired a dodgy ticker.
Despite his captors' video surveillance, he knocks up a prototype Iron Man suit instead, uses it to escape and has a change of heart about his place at the top of the military industrial complex.
Bad move, as it turns out. Having swooped back into Afghanistan's troubles in his finished outfit and done his bit for the War on Terror, he returns to finds himself in a corporate conflict with Bridges' treacherous Obidiah Stane, all of which escalates to a clash of the robo-titans the likes of which haven't been seen since ... well, Transformers last year, actually.
It's a lightweight story, but Iron Man still offers plenty to enjoy, especially as this particular Marvel comics character hasn't already suffered through multiple screen incarnations.
So it's a refreshing start to what is about to become a very crowded superhero genre in 2008. But disappointingly, it does only what's required of it - open the franchise - and not a lot more.
