Merrick here...

The Atomic Boot sent in the following review of IRON MAN, which screened at the theaters on his base in Korea.

There are some moderate spoilers below, so proceed with caution if you want to remain 100% pure.

REALLY cool that Favreau and Downey showed up at the screening discussed here.

Here's The Atomic Boot...

I am a soldier stationed in Korea and found out this afternoon that there would be a special screening of Iron Man at the base theater...for one night only!!

Being the huge movie and comic geek that I am (and realizing we would be seeing it weeks early) I knew I had to check this out. This by itself would be enough to make most geeks envious, but as If this weren't great enough, not only did we find out that we would be the first group to see this finished film in the world, Jon Favreau and Robert Downey, Jr. showed up as well !!

These two are class acts all the way.

But enough ass kissing...on to the details.

***Spoilers ahead, so be warned***

This movie kicks ass. Hard.

The film starts with the footage we've all seen in the trailers of Stark bullshitting with some soldiers ("This better not wind up on Myspace...") and the following capture by the hands of terrorists; Stark waking up and realizing he is bound, scared to death and surrounded by hooded men making a video.

Cue Title Card.

Flashback to a the events leading up to that day, including Stark scoring a Vanity Fair reporter and the pitch to the military leaders for the Stark Enterprise Jericho missile. As Stark leaves the event the convoy is attacked and this catches us up to the present.

As we all know, Stark escapes (in total terrorist ass kicking mode) by creating the suit and is rescued as he wanders the desert aimlessly, afterwards. Our hero returns to the states a changed man, and tries to change the direction of his company. He is met with total and underhanded resistance by an awesomely bald and bearded The Dude, as Obediah Stone.

Tony takes Stone's advice of laying low and taking some time off, but not quite how Stone thought he might. Stark throws himself into developing a new suit, and the following sequences are incredibly CGI'ed, and even more comical and just as well done (if not better) than Spidey learning how his powers worked.

The build up to the final battle with Iron Man vs an iron Jeff Bridges comes almost too quick, but not before we see Stark square off against more terrorists and fighter jets (a great phone conversation between Stark and Terence Howard make this scene even more memorable). The press conference at the end brought huge laughs and I couldn't think of a better and more appropriate ending (or better way to hint SEQUEL)

The long story a little shorter?

Robert Downey, Jr IS Tony Stark.

Favreau completely and totally owned this one...and the Marvel legacy continues to grow.

Inside comic geek jokes running all throughout the film.

Gwyneth as Pepper Potts was actually not bad at all...her acting was spot on and I totally believed in her and Stark's chemistry/sexual tension.

Every comic geek had a huge smile after Terence Howard looked at the extra suit and nailed his delivery.

No Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury, but SHIELD is there (with a great running joke about it's name)

This is a great summer film and if it is not huge initially (I am sure it will be) with the good word-of-mouth it should get I predict a huge world wide return.

Here are some pics to verify this report...feel free to run the cool Korean scripted version (autographed by Favreau and Downey)of the movie poster if you like.

If you use this call me the Atomic Boot...