8.5/10

Tony Stark runs the largest arms manufacturing company in the world. On a trip to the Middle East to sell their newest weapon, he is kidnapped by terrorists and forced to build a copy. Instead, he builds a high-tech suit of armor and escapes. Upon arriving back in America, he decides to finesse his invention and use it to fight evil.

Not only does this movie have an amazing cast (Robert Downey Jr, Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow), but the mix of action, humor, and romance strikes just the right balance. The action scenes are awesome; much better than Transformers because you can actually see what is going on. The character progression of Tony Stark from self-absorbed playboy to a humanitarian superhero is believable.

On the other hand, there are a ton of unbelievable things in the movie. When Tony first uses the suit to fly, he crash lands into a sand dune and emerges from the rubble of his suit virtually unharmed. Trying to perfect the jet propulsion on his boots, Tony shoots up into the metal ceiling so hard he should have broken his spine or cracked his head. And so on and so forth.

Molly wanted to be sure I mentioned the cool computer system Tony used to design his suit. It was sort of like the computers in Minority Report, but taken to the next level: 3D. Given the advanced technology used, I think the film should have been set in the future.

Even though I could critique a lot of the movie, there are enough things that they got right to make me forgive the ridiculous aspects. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it in the theater and will make sure to enjoy it again when it comes out on DVD.

Molly assisted in the writing of this review.