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There are two types of people who watch super hero movies- the first type go simply for the enjoyment of a good but impossible tale of a man or woman who has the strength and power to make wrong things right. They go to see cool costumes, strange super powers, loud, noisy fights, and (usually) a lot of guns, explosions, and very fast cars. They have a chance to sit in the dark for a couple hours and be entertained by a story they know will never come true.
They simply don't understand.
The rest of us go because we've been reading comic books all our lives. We've steeped ourselves in the lore of Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, The Fantastic 4, The X-Men, and now Iron Man. These heroes have lived inside our skulls for years, and we know every storyline they've ever lived. We know every hidden nuance of every character in the comic book world. We're familiar enough with what's happening that we can often guess what's going to happen next. For us, it's not just a movie. For us, it's real.
Iron Man was perfect. Granted, they rewrote his story a bit, but the comic writers do that themselves from time to time anyway- they update things to keep pace with the real world. Not a problem! The guts of the tale are still there, and that's the important thing. The colored drawings we've gazed at for all these years have suddenly come to fantastic life, and it's a fulfillment of a lifetime of mental imagery.
If it's done wrong (I.E. the first Hulk flick) everyone knows it's trash and it slinks off to die. If it's done right it brings whole worlds to life for the choice few who have interested themselves in the richness of the comic book fantasy world.
There was humor here. There was intelligence. There was a familiarity with old characters. There were also cool costumes, strange super powers, loud, noisy fights, a lot of guns, explosions, and very fast cars. There was enough in this movie to satisfy the first type of movie watchers, and there was more than enough to make an old comic book addict like me a supremely happy man.
I've seen both Tony Stark and Iron Man come to life the way I'd hoped they would.
Life is good.
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