I do not claim to be a comic book enthusiast, in fact the only comic book I’ve ever picked up and read (sparsely, mind you) were the Archie Comic books. And those were only read because somebody gave a whole bunch of them to me.

Neither have I seen a single episode of Iron Man the series. Is there such a thing? If there was, suffice to say that its existence has eluded me.

But let me tell you, this movie rocked. It rocked so much that I even went out and saw it again for a second time.

They had picked the perfect director, Jon Favreu, whose grasp of the material painted the screens with sarcasm and wit. His only flaw, I found, was the obvious self-insertion, as he was caught in many a scene as Tony Stark’s chauffer. He had also managed to incorporate into the film one of the token black men’s lines without it sounding corny. By Terrence Howard nonetheless.

Sure, he had thrown in a couple of those cheesy scenes in there when one of the characters died, but I guess it’s one sure fire way to appeal to the general masses’ sympathy for the characters.

I racked my brains searching for another actor who could’ve pulled off the role of Iron Man. It took me a whole day to finally succumbed to the sheer perfection of the producer’s choice to pick Robert Downey Jr. Although he is one of my favorite actors to date, I don’t suppose I’m being biased when I say that no matter how hard the Tom Cruises or the Christian Bales of the world try to play a role like that, Robert Downey Jr. still would’ve done it better. He had perfected the blend of haughtiness and arrogance of the character that made it believable when all the women fell and tripped all over themselves just to sleep with the dude.

He had given Stan Lee’s Tony Stark a ladie’s man, man’s man, man-about-town character and you’ll love him for it.

Gwynneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts was subtle, yet effective. Many other actresses would’ve thrown a hussy fit over the role, possibly wanting Pepper to be a bit more involved with the action scenes. You could practically see the professionalism on screen. On one scene that could’ve been a cheesy horror-flick-esque sequence she had given the character enough poise and realism to it that the whole thing had actually gotten that suspense feel to it.

The one thing that Iron Man had over the other Marvel movies out there is that it’s believable. The plot probably isn’t as farfetched as some people would like it to be. It had given us enough details and grounded itself on real events that you would be given a bunch of unrealistic sequences and still you’d buy it.

Although I suppose it did take the easy way out of the whole plot and became politically correct by making the villain an American. Considering America’s circumstances, I guess it was a necessary drawback.

All in all, Iron Man had been one of the better films I’ve seen lately and definitely the best Marvel movie out there since the first X-Men movie.

4 out of 5. Definitely.