In “Iron Man,” Robert Downey Jr. doesn't dial down his eager narcissistic wit. As Tony Stark, a high-living celebrity weapons contractor who is wounded on a trek through Afghanistan, only to transform himself into a hulking mechanical rocket man, Downey, whoever he's talking to, is really just nattering to himself. His mocking, crumpled charm never disappears, even when he climbs into his “Iron Man” machine suit, with its whirring, clicking limbs, flamethrower arms, and the mask of a medieval knight. Out to destroy the weapons he once created, he becomes a rock-'em sock-'em robot for peace.
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly reviews “Iron Man,” starring Robert Downey Jr.
“Iron Man” is a Marvel comics adaptation in which a routine story line has been burnished with great elegance and skill. The director, Jon Favreau, doesn't exactly have a big sci-fi track record, but he draws on his humanistic gifts to create a compellingly down-to-earth superhero fantasy. The effects sequences, in which Iron Man zips through the air like a toaster that's been shot out of a cannon, never let us forget that this gold-titanium hulk has been built, from the ground up. And the casting is aces. Jeff Bridges, as Stark's corporate partner, looks as scary as a cult leader in his shaved head and bushy beard, but Bridges uses that wry, trust-me voice to create a timely portrait of stylish power.
Gwyneth Paltrow, as Pepper Potts, Stark's selfless girl Friday, manages the neat trick of taking a character who's a pre-feminist throwback and playing her with a liberated twinkle. Too often, superhero films feel like a different species of entertainment from the smudged comic books that spawned them. Iron Man takes you back to the days when you sprawled out in front of those books, flipping through the adventures of a guy who was too vital, and vulnerable, to ever be a mere special-effects object.