* I never read the Iron Man comics, but all the Marvel titles have some cross-pollination. The only thing I remembered about Tony Stark was that he turned into an alcoholic. The movie remembered this too, which surprised me.
* Obadiah radiated villainy, didn't he? I never heard of him before but I had him pegged as "Bad Guy" from the moment he's shown in the presentation as having run the company for a few years and then handed the reins to Stark. If he'd been a good guy I would've been surprised.
* ZOMG Stark is a jerk. First movie I've seen in a long time where I was rooting for the protagonist not to get the girl. Yes, he's much less of a jerk by the end of the film but I still wouldn't trust him with his own heart, never mind anyone else's.
* The moral of "building weapons to use yourself as a vigilante = good" but "building weapons for your county = bad" struck me as pretty dubious. Still, okay, it's a comic book. Also, no one else tells Stark "You're right, you're doing the right thing."
* This movie needed quite a bit of "okay, it's a comic book". I kept expecting the terminal velocity falls to hurt. I mean, what in that suit was going to do that kind of shock absorbtion? I have no idea why this bothered me and not the 203 other technical impossibilities.
* The humor was good. "You've caught me in way more embarrassing situations than this." The robot with the fire extinguisher. Heh. "I'm being responsible. That's a new direction for me. The company, I mean. The company is being responsible."
* I liked Stark less for being a jerk, and the movie more because he was. The film doesn't make excuses for him being an ass. It's not like a Bond film, where he's a cretin and no one notices. The scene where Rhodes takes him to task for it -- "so when you need your diaper changed, you call me" -- was good. Robert Downey Jr. did a great job with the character, giving him that touch of humor that made him tolerable. You can also tell that most people put up with Stark because he's rich and a genius. It sort of makes me glad not to be a rich genius.
* The cast is too small. This is always a problem in films because they don't have time to develop more than a few characters. But someday I'd like to see a superhero who comes from a big family and has several close friends, instead of an orphan with no friends apart from one or two co-workers. You know, I understand why Stark has no friends but not really why Pepper doesn't. Maybe because all her friends got sick of seeing her give up her life for Stark.
* I liked the agent from SHIELD. No, not Nick Fury: Carl. The small, unobtrusive professional. I want to see Pepper date him in the sequel. I don't know why, I just think that would be funny.
* I enjoyed the fights against the terrorists, especially the second one. I know fights where the protagonist has a clear advantage aren't properly 'gripping' but it was cool to see him mow down the bad guys. Yay hero!
* The showdown against Obi was pretty meh by contrast. I dunno why, exactly.
* Would it have killed the writers to put a little thought into fooling Stark's captors about what he was building? I mean, c'mon, a set of fake plans, a bit of fast-talking about how this piece of armor was really part of the missile, a loop in the videotape so the camera couldn't monitor them live -- something. I know you're not going to make this plausible but it'd've been nice if you'd made some token effort.
