Iron Man

2008 comic book movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Part two of the biography of baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken who broke Lou Gehrig's "iron man" consecutive game streak. This is the part of the future Oriole superstar's story in which he winds up in Afghanistan where terrorists are forcing him to build a fancy missile. Instead, he builds a suit of armor and busts out of there. "Ain't no time to [censored] around," he said. "I've got spring training to get ready for." Cue Black Sabbath song.

It's starting to get to the point where if you've seen one comic book superhero movie, you've seen 'em all. And I'm not entirely sure why I keep subjecting myself to them. Robert Downey Jr. (the greatest actor of all time) doesn't really need to be in this. His performance seems half-assed, and anybody who sort of looks like him (read: dreamy) would have sufficed. I'm not sure what was going on with his facial hair anyway. About one-fourth of this movie consists of montages of Robert Downey Jr. building things and despite the guitar music accompanying that building action, I wasn't exactly moved. The story is predictable and really sort of lame in a way that mirrors the recent Hulk movie, and although I know I should probably not tear something apart because of what seem to be scientific illogicalities (of which this has many), that stuff really seemed to get in the way of the story here. I also thought the Iron Man looked dopey, and the action scenes, even though the special effects were adequate, were mostly at a distance which did nothing to bring the action into my living room. And I hated the rock 'n' roll soundtrack. Ho-hum.