Well it’s finally here. For all of you on the fence and for all of you who have been turned off Marvel movie adaptations such as Fantastic Four: Rise of th Silver Surfer and Ghost Rider, fear not! For this movie is great.

Now I’ll be honest with you, when I first heard news this movie was coming I was pissed. Mainly because of the shit Stark has been pulling lately with the 50 States Initiative and whatnot, but also because I felt that of all the Marvel characters who deserve their own movies Iron Man should not be next in line. A couple weeks ago, though, when I started hearing good things about the movie and learned that this is the first movie that Marvel has self-produced and therefore has creative control over, I began to change my mind. I’m glad I did because this is by far the best Marvel movie to date.

Robert Downey Jr. does a great job as Tony Stark. He captures that douche bag quality that is essential to Stark’s personality. Even after his character goes through a change of heart and begins to change his ways, he still maintains that spark of being a billionaire playboy. Robert Downey Jr. seemed to have a lot of fun playing the character and even said in an interview that he would be willing to play Stark fifteen more times if necessary. That’s a really arbitrary number but whatever, that’s great he’s so committed to the character.

The supporting characters were all great as well. Gwyneth Paltrow played a great Pepper Potts. She and Tony have several good scenes together in the movie, one of the best being when she needs to play “Operation” as Tony puts it, changing out his chest battery without touching any of the wires to the sides of this open cavity. Terrance Howard as James Rhodes also had several good interactions with Tony and it will be cool to see him as War Machine later on in the series. Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane was a good casting choice and it made me chuckle that even through the voice box of the Iron Monger armor you can still make out his distinctive voice.

The movie starts out with Tony’s kidnapping, this time taking place in Afghanistan rather than Vietnam to bring his character into present day events. It then proceeds to show you the events prior to his kidnapping which does a good job of starting the movie out with a bang to get the audience all revved up for the two hours of awesome they are in for. Since this is an origin story movie it goes through the regular process of having the main character accept their role as a hero, the supporting characters grow concerned for the person, blah blah blah. What makes this better than most is the flavor of Stark’s character.

The action in this movie is bad ass. There is a surprising amount of violence in a movie that seems to be marketed as a summer blockbuster along the lines of Spider-Man. Spider-Man just webs up his enemies and leaves them for the cops. Iron Man freaking uppercuts a terrorist and sends him spinning into a second story concrete wall. For people who aren’t wearing power armor, Iron Man’s foes don’t stand a chance against any of his attacks. It’s rather strange that there is no blood in this movie because those people should be torn apart by repulsor jets. The fight between the Iron Monger and Iron Man is a little weak for what should have been an epic battle but it has its moments (such as the Iron Monger swinging a motorcycle into Iron Man which sends him flying into a bus) and gets the job done.

Throughout the movie there are little nods to things from the comics such as the terrorist group which kidnaps Stark being called the “Ten Rings.” I was a little disappointed that Jarvis was relegated to being a computer rather than an actual person but it’s not that big a deal. At several points during the movie there is a federal agent who wants to talk to Stark about his kidnapping who says he’s from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. I feel like an idiot for not realizing this stands for S.H.I.E.L.D. until the guy says it at the end of the movie.

I like how Marvel is trying to create a common continuity in their movies now. For those of you who don’t know Robert Downey Jr. is going to be appearing as Tony Stark in The Incredible Hulk. Also, at the end of Iron Man, there is a bonus scene where Samuel L. Jackson introduces himself to Stark as Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. with the proposition of an Avengers Initiative. There is no part about that I don’t like. What would be especially great with these crossovers would be if there were scenes that were common to different movies but from different characters perspectives, or if events from one movie were referenced in another. It feels like a shame though that good properties such as The Fantastic Four and Spider-Man are in the hands of other studios and have already been tapped to the extent where doing such things with those characters would be difficult. The only reason that Marvel is able to do an Iron Man/Incredible Hulk crossover of sorts is that Marvel bought the rights away from Universal after the unpleasantness in 2003.

So basically I hope that this movie is a sign of good things to come from Marvel. They have a lot to make up for in my eyes such as Daredevil. So for now and for always, Make Mine Marvel.