Iron Man isn't iron... He's GOLD.

1. Robert Downey Jr, I know I've said this millions of times, but please divorce your wife and marry me.

2. Damn.

Now that I've got that out of the way, I must say that I had high expectations for this movie (especially with RDJ in it), and Iron Man didn't disappoint. At all. Like, in any way. Except the Gwyneth Paltrow thing, but other than that I walked out of there with a huge grin on my face. Seriously, the ticket-checker lady and a loitering police officer both gave me odd/suspicious looks.

Let's get one thing straight. It may have been a fun movie with a solid script and great effects, but it was Robert's show. They could have called it that with a little 'Ironman' footnote beneath the title and it would STILL rake in millions, I guarantee it.

RDJ didn't become Tony Stark. Tony Stark became RDJ.

Okay, first, Marvel finally got it right. It wasn't camp city like it was with Spiderman, and it wasn't mediocre town like it was with X-men (no offense, Mr. Singer), and it didn't plain suck like The Hulk, The Punisher, The Fantastic Four (both of them), Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Elektra, and whatever else they've thrown at us. This movie really defied the convention.

First, of course, there was Tony Stark/RDJ. Robert made you hate him and love him. He's fast, glib, painfully smart, and undeniably sexy. Those are the same comments I made during Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and everyone looked at me weird. That won't be the case after this weekend, between you me. RDJ did a beautiful job portraying Stark as an arrogant prick at the beginning of the movie; you could feel the smarminess oozing off the screen, practically. But as Stark began to change and focus on protecting the people instead of manufacturing weapons, you believed that he was genuine, mostly because he never lost the sarcasm and the fast-pacedness that was uniquely RDJ Stark. GodDAMN, what a performance. But then again, it's RDJ, were we expecting anything less?

Terrence Howard was decent and Gwyneth Paltrow was whiny and forgettable (as per), but Jeff Bridges made one hell of a bad guy. I mean, as soon as I saw him I thought 'there's the douche', but he fooled me up until the middle. Bridges is the man (see: KPAX, but I never saw him as the villain. He was good. Really good. But the minor character that stood out for me was Yinsen, played wonderfully by Shaun Toub. I've never heard of Toub, but I'll be scourging the internets for more information on him. I really enjoyed his character and was really sad to see him die; he played such a crucial role and I understand why his death was necessary, but I hoped he would escape with Stark. But you know what they say about hope! It's dumb.

The script was fantastic and I know that RDJ improvised a few things here and there (as per), which made it more real and a lot more funny. And the effects were great. The CGI was terrific; it was well-done and didn't take away from the movie at all.

omfg rdj.

I am totally going to see this again. And it's been a long time in coming but I think it's finally safe to say that KICK-ASS ACTION FILMS ARE BACK!

I give Iron Man 5 out of 5.

Go see it.