Against my expectations, I really enjoyed this. It is worth watching for three reasons:
1) Robert Downey Jr. He is more or less perfect for the role displaying his cynical brand of humor leavened with some low key but effective acting (especially early on when he is imprisoned by some Taleban-esque Afghans).
2) the dialogue is clever, quick and genuinely funny in places. Downey’s lines with Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges (both of whom handle their roles well) have the sort of zing that you don’t normally associate with a summer blockbuster.
3) the Iron Man him/itself. The usual superhero backstory is about how Bruce Wayne became Batman, or Peter Parker became Spiderman. Here the backstory is shorn of any real psychological drama. It is about mechanics and pulleys and “arc reactors” and stabilizers and such like. What we get is a strong sense of whizz-bangery (and several funny scenes of Downey testing the equipment).
Good old-fashioned entertainment. As one of my kids noted, it is rare that an audience applauds a movie like this when the final credits roll.