ironmanfinalposter2kr11.jpgWell, the first of the big summer blockbusters finally arrived last Friday so we made an opening day visit to Cobb Theaters in Lakeland, Florida. A full house. If there had been standing room, they could have sold that as well. The nice thing about our new Multiplex is that it is all stadium type seating so even if you have a basketball player in a hat in front of you, you still don’t have to miss any of the film. Anyway I digress.

Iron Man is the tale of Tony Stark ( Robert Downey Jr. ), an MIT graduate by the age of 15 and now the worlds foremost weapons developer and manufacturer. Whilst demonstrating his latest weapon in the desert in the Middle East, he is kidnapped and forced to build another weapon for terrorists. Needless to say, that is not what he does and the first Iron Man is created. Now, I don’t want to give anything away, but these are some nice twists in the plot, a little romantic interest with Miss Pepper Potts ( Gwyneth Paltrow ) and great performance by Jeff Bridges as Obidiah Stone, Stark’s No 2 at Stark industries. There is a nice little cameo for Director Jon Favreau, but the star of the film is the special effects. Downey is very believable in the role of Stark and no doubt Audi came up with some major cash as there are vehicles all over the place in the film.

If action / adventure is your bag, then I urge you to go and see this. Although I think it will look pretty good on the small screen when it eventually comes to DVD, the big screen with the Dolby sound system turned up loud definitely added something. I don’t think it will give anything away to say that Iron Man 2 will soon be in production. Oh yes, if you do go and see it, wait out the credits for the final scene. I couldn’t figure out why nobody was moving when the very long credits rolled, but one of the ushers tipped us off that it wasn’t quite finished. He was right !!!

Spend some cash and see this. Rating 8.5 out of 10