Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
79
(38 sources)
79
(38 sources)
-
100
Variety
Ever-eclectic director Jon Favreau, who briefly pops up onscreen as a Stark minion, maintains a brisk but not frantic pace, and, in concert with lenser Matthew Libatique, production designer J. Michael Riva and the first-rate visual effects team, has made an unusually elegant looking film for the genre. Read Full Review » -
100
Wall Street Journal
The gadgetry is absolutely dazzling, the action is mostly exhilarating, the comedy is scintillating and the whole enormous enterprise, spawned by Marvel comics, throbs with dramatic energy because the man inside the shiny red robotic rig is a daring choice for an action hero, and an inspired one. Read Full Review » -
100
Chicago Sun-Times
You hire an actor for his strengths, and Downey would not be strong as a one-dimensional mighty-man. He is strong because he is smart, quick and funny, and because we sense his public persona masks deep private wounds. By building on that, Favreau found his movie, and it's a good one. Read Full Review » -
91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Is it possible to have yet another expensive excursion into this genre that seems in any way fresh, original and alive? The answer, surprisingly, is yes. Read Full Review » -
91
Baltimore Sun
Downey and Favreau and the special-effects team transform the trying-out of the armor and its powers into slapstick cadenzas. But equally entertaining is Stark's and Potts' recognition that they share more than a mere working chemistry. Read Full Review » -
90
New York Magazine
Loyal assistant, Pepper Potts, isn't much of a part, but Gwyneth Paltrow is a presence. She stands around looking amused and flabbergastingly pretty, slinging wisecracks with serene aplomb. Read Full Review » -
90
The Hollywood Reporter
Downey plays off his own bad-boy image wonderfully. The writers give him great lines to work with and ditto that for his Girl Friday, Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts, whose own svelte lines cannot be improved on. Read Full Review » -
90
Village Voice
Iron Man, too, is something that people will see regardless of the reviews, but here is the point: Where Michael Bay (Transformers) has mastered a kind of sensory-assaulting pop art, Favreau is a born storyteller who engages the audience's imagination rather than crushing it in a tsunami of digital noise. Read Full Review » -
90
Time
Some of us knows that there's an American style -- best displayed in the big, smart, kid-friendly epic -- that few other cinemas even aspire to, and none can touch. When it works, as it does here, it rekindles even a cynic's movie love. So cheers to Downey, Favreau and the Iron Man production company. They don't call it Marvel for nothing. Read Full Review » -
88
Rolling Stone
All praise to acting dynamo Robert Downey Jr., who brings so much creative juice to the party that Iron Man achieves instant liftoff. Read Full Review » -
88
ReelViews
When it comes to tone, Iron Man achieves something at which many of even its most celebrated predecessors have failed: it doesn't FEEL like a superhero movie. Instead, it's bigger and more inclusive. Read Full Review » -
88
New York Post
With such smarts and outstanding special effects, I eagerly await a second Iron Man movie, which of course is virtually promised in the final scene. Read Full Review » -
88
Philadelphia Inquirer
Until a final conflict that more resembles a monster-truck jam than a superhero showdown, Iron Man is solid gold. Read Full Review » -
88
Chicago Tribune
As big-budget comic book adaptations go, this one's a gratifying freak--the right kind of conflicted, as well as quick-witted. It's a lot of fun. Read Full Review » -
83
Entertainment Weekly
Even at his coolest, Downey's Iron Man remains a ghostly, neurotic crusader -- one whose life, in the Marvel tradition, has become a grand spectacle of overcompensation. Read Full Review » -
83
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Iron Man is the rare comic-book movie that makes the prospect of a sequel seem like a promise instead of a threat. Read Full Review » -
83
Portland Oregonian
There are more compelling stories to be found in the comic book world, and there are more expressive directors than Jon Favreau. But on the bases of wit, verve, spirit and whiz-bangery, it's pretty tough to find fault with. Read Full Review » -
80
New York Daily News
The result is the first comic-book movie in a while that actually feels like a classic comic book: fast, furious and flip. Forget about superheroes with love problems and tortured souls. Read Full Review » -
80
Newsweek
Downey and Favreau give the movie a quirky flavor it can call its own. For that we can be grateful. Read Full Review » -
80
The New York Times
Has the advantage of being an unusually good superhero picture. Or at least -- since it certainly has its problems -- a superhero movie that's good in unusual ways. Read Full Review » -
80
Slate
When it's idling in neutral, and we're watching Stark putter in his workshop or seduce unsuspecting journalists, Iron Man abounds in that rarest of superpowers: charm. Read Full Review » -
80
Salon.com
The movie's climactic battle scene is mildly thrilling -- although it's not nearly as exciting as simply watching Downey and Bridges work together. Bridges makes a great villain precisely because he's such a relaxed, affable presence. Read Full Review » -
78
Austin Chronicle
And Favreau? If you'd told me 12 years ago that Swingers' comic linchpin would end up helming one of the best, most visceral, and downright fun foray of all the comic-book franchises waiting in the CGI wings, I'd have told you to amscray, kid. But what the hell? Turns out irony's good for your blood. Read Full Review » -
75
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75
USA Today
Iron Man's biggest strength is that the fantastically armored suit doesn't overpower the intriguingly flawed character encased within. Read Full Review » -
75
San Francisco Chronicle
An action sci-fi blockbuster extravaganza that provides cartoon thrills for thinking people. It's the best movie of its kind since the second "Spider-Man" movie four years ago. Read Full Review » -
75
TV Guide
A dark delight that combines pop-culture wit and genuine emotional depth. Read Full Review » -
75
Premiere
Iron Man is the first Marvel Comics superhero movie I would willingly sit through a second time. This is the result not just of what the movie does, but what the movie doesn't do. Read Full Review » -
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Cynical, hip, politically opportunistic and loaded with kick-ass comic action. Read Full Review » -
75
Miami Herald
It's a fantastic special effect because it doesn't look like a special effect: The movie sells the illusion that the suit could maybe, possibly, exist. Read Full Review » -
70
Chicago Reader
The movie is so clever and smoothly paced that it's easy to overlook the odious story line. Read Full Review » -
70
Film Threat
As comic book movies go, Iron Man is a solid entry. Downey and company help drag Favreau out of the genre holes he digs, making for a decent experience. Read Full Review » -
63
Boston Globe
Downey appears to like all this make-believe. Even the clunky dialogue sounds witty out of his mouth. This is not a part that makes great demands on his talent, and his slummy approach to it is amusing. Read Full Review » -
60
Los Angeles Times
Though Iron Man is diverting enough in the comic-book-movie mode, there is one thing it doesn't have, and that is dramatic unity. Unlike the irreducible element that is its namesake, Iron Man the movie is an alloy, a combination of several different and disconnected components that don't manage to unite to make a coherent whole. Read Full Review » -
60
Empire
It's not sure where to go once the final Iron Man suit is constructed, and seems in a rush to get there, but Downey Jr and the supporting cast are so perfectly placed we're already looking forward to the bound-to-be-better sequel. Read Full Review » -
58
Christian Science Monitor
I suppose it's asking too much for a great actor to be matched up with a great director on a project like this. On the other hand, there's always the sequel. Read Full Review » -
50
The New Yorker
[Downey] can make offhandedness mesmerizing, even soulful; he passes through the key moments in this cloddish story as if he were ad-libbing his inner life. Read Full Review » -
50
Washington Post
It succeeds only fitfully. Toggling between Stark's impish goatee and Iron Man's full-metal body condom, and amid so many generic fireballs, kill shots and earsplitting thumps, bumps and crunches, the film finally collapses under its own weight. Read Full Review »
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