In love with Iron Man

Last evening ended on a magical note because of Iron Man , the 2008 American superhero film . It was one movie I had simply never got round to watching, in spite of hearing a lot of positive talk about it. And am I glad  I finally got to see it !!!

 The story is simple enough- Tony Stark ( Robert Downey Jr)  inheritor of   defense contractor, Stark Industries, is in war ravaged Afghanistan with his entourage to demonstrate the new missile "Jericho" from the stable of Stark Industries. The convoy is ambushed and Stark is critically wounded by one of his own missiles; he is captured and imprisoned in a cave by a terrorist group the . An electromagnet, grafted into Stark's chest by fellow captive Yinsen keeps the shrapnel  shell shards that wounded him from reaching his heart and killing him. Ten Rings leader offers Stark freedom in exchange for building a Jericho missile for the group, but Tony and Yinsen agree Raza will not keep his word.

They secretly build a powerful  arc reactor powered by an electric generator , to power Stark's electromagnet, and then begin to secretly build a suit of armor powered by the reactor, to escape. Yinsen dies in the escape attempt- but not before speaking one of the most memorable lines of the movie, “Don’t waste your life".  It's good advice, but there's no worry about wasting our precious time  on this movie.

 After being later rescued by Rhodes, Stark returns home and announces that his company will no longer manufacture weapons. Downey is a delight as the playboy in the early scenes. This Tony Stark is so much fun to be around we're almost sorry to see his transformation take place. His business partner, Obadiah Stane (a splendidly bald, bearded Jeff Bridges), is also unhappy about the change.

The movie has a brilliant  scene in which Tony invites his assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow in a perfect fit), to reach into the hole in his chest and fix his battery is a cheeky cocktail of trust, disgust, love, sex, fear and courage (it also plays  a key role  in  subsequent developments), but above all it plays funny. When a movie is firing on all those cylinders, you know it's a winner.

 "Iron Man" is a supremely confident, well-tooled entertainment. The action  is absolutely dazzling, the dialogues  are  exhilarating, the comedy is scintillating and the whole enormous movie  throbs with dramatic energy.
On my agenda- the sequels to Iron Man!!