I know I need to post more stuff. I'm currently at a standstill on the character model. I have it textured, but I need to get access to a renderfarm before I can get any farther with it.
On to the review!
I never thought I would have been bored by a comic book action movie. Though, by the end I was tempted in pulling out my iPod to play some games so I would have something to do. How on earth could an action movie have been that dull? Simple. It suffers from "too much of everything." To be fair, a lot of movies and TV shows suffer from this as well. V, for example, is a TV show suffering from too much. There's too many sub plots, too many characters, too many explosions, and it moves too quickly.
Lets tackle the sub plots first. We have to deal with Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.) who's having a mental breakdown because the thing in his chest that's keeping him alive is also killing him. There's the one where Pepper becomes CEO of Stark Enterprises. The US Government is also trying to get the Iron Man suit for military purposes which leads to Don Cheadle stealing a suit. There's Justin Hammer trying to win a government contract. And finally Ivan (played by Mickey Rourke) who had some beef with the stark family. Ivan is also the only character I cared about, probably because he was the only one that wasn't really obnoxious. This movie should have been split into two different films. It would have allowed the characters to flesh out more and it wouldn't have been cluttered by too many sub plots.
There are too many characters, half of which just irritated me. I normally like Sam Rockwell. He's done some pretty good stuff, like Moon. But here, he seems to be trying to pull off a character that's trying to be the smartest idiot around by channeling Zaphod Beeblebrox and amping it up past 11. Zaphod was fun in context of the Hitchhiker's Guide and he pulled off that role well. But, in Iron Man it just comes off as trying too hard. The rest of the cast seemed to be constantly bickering to the point where it reminded me too much of a college dorm situation where you have too many people living in close quarters and people start getting on each other's nerves.
The special effects were pretty. But I got the distinct feeling that the creators knew that their plot(s) and characters were lacking any depth so they tried to distract the audience with shiny.
Avatar was also shiny, but I could deal with that because it felt like a fleshed out world.
Ultimately the Iron Man's climax is rather lacking. I liken it to an old Nintendo game where the final zone is actually harder than the final boss fight. The final fight with Ivan was concluded too easily. Granted, it was a practical way to take out the boss, but it just comes off as if the writers couldn't think of anything better.
Over all this is a movie filled with annoying characters, a story that doesn't know what plot it really wants to run with, and desensitizing special effects.
Wait for DVD or the dollar theater. Don't waste more than $5 on this film.
