Movie Review: Iron Man Marks the Return of First-Rate Superhero Movies

IronMan

Thank you, Marvel Studios. Thank you, Jon Favreau. Thank you, Robert Downey Jr. Thank you for not only making the first good comic book superhero movie since 2005's Batman Begins, but also for restoring my dormant enthusiasm for what had become a favourite sub-genre of mine. I grew up reading comic books, so once they started coming out with quality adaptations of comic book heroes, beginning with 2000's X-Men, I generally had a few movies a year to get geeked up about in anticipation.

I loved the first two X-Men films, the first two Spider-Man films, and even the underappreciated Hulk film. But following the triumphant Batman Begins, the genre spit out three years of dreck, beginning with the mediocre but fun Fantastic Four, followed by the abysmal X-Men: The Last Stand, the bloodless Superman Returns, the embarrassing Ghost Rider, and the disappointing Spider-Man 3, which became a microcosm of the genre as a bloated mess that drowned in its own excesses.

The result was that I no longer greeted the announcement of a new superhero adaptation with excitement, but instead dreaded what Hollywood had in store (with the lone exception being this summer's The Dark Knight). If they could screw up the Spider-Man franchise with the same players in place from the earlier two films, there wasn't much reason to suspect that they'd get new franchises right, particularly since the properties were being handed over to hacks like Brett Ratner and Mark Steven Johnson, and roles being populated by affordable non-stars like Brandon Routh.

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Craig Cove