Iron Man

Spoilers Follow
Iron Man was pretty good and enjoyable, if not rather predictable. I thought it was great how they made the plot so the main character was forced into "becoming" the 'iron man' in order to escape from these terrorists, but then I started to see where the plot was going after that. When you see that enemy terrorist leader get shot at with the rocket but it slightly misses, you know his face is going to be scorched and he's going to come back for the second half of the movie to take his revenge. And that scene where Tony is testing his boots at 10%? You knew he was going to fly away and break his neck, seriously.

Iron Man seems to share a screenplay in common with a lot of other successful blockbuster movies that are equally enjoyable. This screenplay, which has been employed in Minority Report, Batman Begins, to a lesser extent in Casino Royale, and probably in more movies basically runs like this:
1 - Introduce the main character and the first plot problem of the two-goal story-arc. Also introduce secondary characters like love interests and mentors. All four (including Iron Man) of the above movies sort of do this.
2 - Flashback to show the main character's life and history up to this moment. All of the above movies did this except it didn't really happen in Casino Royale, as far as I can remember.
3 - Flashforward back to the present where the first main problem has been solved. In Minority Report, you could probably say the first main problem was solved in the intro, or it was actually introduced here as the second problem of a three-goal story-arc.
4 - Develop the character and have him change his views (or not). This would be where Batman learns to become Batman in Gotham City, or Iron Man tests out his equipment.
5 - Introduce the second problem of the two-goal story arc. Batman must now save Gotham from the scarecrow. Iron Man must save the middle-east from villainous weaponry. In Casino Royale and Minority Report it's a little more muddled and hard to see.
6 - Twist the story by making one of the secondary characters the TRUE villain (this would be the mentor in Batman Begins, Minority Report, and Iron Man). Now the characters we introduced in (1) have more importance.
7 - Go down to the final showdown and end the movie with some kind of moral statement.

There were some plot holes that I would've jumped at, but they were skillfully, if not patiently resolved at the end of the scenes they were introduced, such as:
- How can you build an iron man suit while terrorists watch you? Oh, he's doing it BEHIND the curtain!
- How can you build an iron man suit in what feels like only a week in movie time? What? It was really THREE MONTHS? Oh-kay!
- If the terrorist's mission was really to kill Tony Stark, why did they keep waiting for him to build the missile? What? They didn't know that he was the real target and so had to negotiate a new deal with their employers about how to kill him? Okay, that makes sense!
But it all worked out in the end.

I don't know if it's me or the CGI, but the whole time I was watching the movie, I wasn't consciously aware that I was watching CGI. Of course you know it's fake, but it just looks so good and blends seamlessly into the live action scenes.

All in all, Iron Man is a pretty entertaining movie that is well structured, makes good fun of superhero cliches (especially the ending), has excellent CGI, and is an enjoyable romp.
Recommended. See it.