Iron Man: Just Not As Cool As Batman

This just in: it's much easier to write about things that are silly than it is to write about things that are awesome.

So, yesterday I spontaneously decided to go and see Iron Man. I'm quite fond of comic-book-adaptation movies; the mediocre ones are entertaining enough and have enough Great Big Effects to justify spending money to watch them, and the good ones ... well, the good ones are better than the mediocre ones. They never make my favourites list, but they're pretty good.

Iron Man falls squarely in the Mediocre But Fun category. In the proud tradition started (for me) by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and proudly carried on by (for instance) that Narnia movie, Iron Man was fun to watch for the spectacle and the joy of laughing at things the rest of the audience isn't laughing at. Most of its value lies in ridiculousness which can be mocked later; this is particularly true if you have seen it with someone who thought it was "awesome sauce".

The Good:

• Robert Downey Jr, playing the character that Robert Downey Jr plays so well.
• Awesome suiting-up sequences.
• Gwyneth Paltrow (surprisingly, for me).
• J.A.R.V.I.S - mm, sarcastic AI with a British accent.

The Bad:

• Strange pacing, a overly long prologue and a bizarre lack of any feeling that anything is really at stake. In a way, nothing really seems to happen.
• America Good. Weapons And Guns And Stuff That Goes Bam Good (Unless Brown People Have Them).
• Highly educated, politically aware women will turn into undiscriminating nymphomaniacs the moment they are patronised by the right sexist jerk.
• Gags that seem quite funny at first turn out to be the setup for the same gag, which will show up three or four more times.
• Completely unconvincing I-will-become-a-hero epiphany and accompanying speech.

The So Bad It's Good:

• Ham-handed foreshadowing all over the place. Gosh, do you think that might turn out to be the Big Bad Guy? Do you think that maybe he might turn out to need that [significant item] at a crucial moment in the future?
• Bad guys who lose because they are just not very good, rather than being defeated because the good guys are awesome.
• Power armour that protects the wearer from sustained gunfire, tanks, etc, despite having bullet holes in it afterwards.
• Robert Downey Jr's facial hair.
• "Special" laws of physics etc. for this comic-book-movie world, which are then violated by the comic-book-movie itself.
• Hey, isn't that a gizmo from Men In Black?

I don't begrudge the money I paid to see Iron Man - half the fun is seeing it on the big screen, and the other half is seeing it with a bunch of other people (many of whom react with surprise to the blindingly obvious, thus providing yet more snarky fun for yours truly). On the other hand, I wouldn't pay full price to see it and I don't think I'd even sacrifice two hours to see it again for free.

Can The Dark Knight come out now, please?