Paul and I saw Iron Man on Sunday. Despite 93% on the TomatoMeter and rave review from Flibby, we found it pretty mediocre.

* * * SPOILER ALERT * * *

* * * SPOILER ALERT * * *

* * * SPOILER ALERT * * *

In particular, we disliked:

• Tony Stark was very clearly and deliberately portrayed as a gambling, boozing, womanizing playboy, but such a man could not have successfully managed a gargantuan weapons corporation. Even later, after his supposed moral transformation, his impulsive testing of the suit at high altitude was inconsistent with the kind of mind required to develop dangerous weapons, including the suit itself. While I enjoyed some of the humor of Stark’s character, but I’d say that it undercut the seriousness of his undertaking.
• The plot was way too predictable. It was pretty easy to guess from the first few minutes of the movie that Obadiah Stane — the regent of the company — would turn out insanely evil.
• The moral lesson learned by Tony Stark in his captivity was very confused. At first, it seemed like something like pacifism — or at least a determination to not allow weapons to fall into enemy hands. That was all very mushy and unclear. Certainly, Stark’s discovery of weapons in the hands of the enemies should not have been shocking in the slightest — as weapons fall into the hands of the enemy all the time in warfare. So that was not grounds for any kind of revolution about his responsibility, nor for deciding to stop selling weapons to anyone. Of course, the real problem was that his own company was covertly selling weapons to the terrorists. In retrospect, that makes more sense of his decisions, but not entirely.

  In short, we thought the characters, the plot, and the theme deficient — although not horrible. It had unrealized potential as a movie. That being said, Gwyneth Paltrow was very easy on the eyes.