[X] My Assistant

[dvandorn]

As someone who avidly read most all of the comic books that were printed in the 1960s, I always go to these film versions of the venerable comics I loved as a child with some trepidation. Some of these things have been done so badly...

Iron Man, however, is a tour de force in pretty much all arenas. Downey does a truly wondrous job of taking the Tony Stark character from someone you'd only want to have a beer with if you could poison his brew to a guy you really care about. And Jeff Bridges impressed me in this film as he hasn't impressed me for decades.

And, of course, anything Gwyneth Paltrow does is automatically worth watching, for me. Regardless of what it is. That's a hormonal thing on my end, though...

But the film really does capture a lot of the elements from the original comic book, moving (in accelerated fashion) from the original "shellhead" version of the Iron Man suit, to the Mark II form-fitting golden suit, and finally settling on the Mark III red-and-gold suit that we've known for so long, now. While much of the film must be CGI, transitions from effect to live film are completely invisible. And I had the good fortune to see the film in a theater using DLP projection -- not a bit of celluloid was killed to create my viewing experience! And the quality of the image, on a really big screen, was just exquisite... frame rates are higher in DLP projection than in standard film projection, so the fast movement on-screen never fluttered or strobed. Truly impressive.

I'd give the film four stars out of five.

-the other Doug