Iron Man (2-Disc Ultimate Edition) (Blu-ray Disc)

Iron Man is a good movie, but it isn't the amazing spectacle many fanboys believe it to be. There are two sides to Iron Man: 1) The character driven origin story and 2) the big hulked out brawl. In theaters I veered more to enjoying the origin story and the direction the film was going as its lead character, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), was setting himself up to rid the world of the weapons his company had created and had since fallen into the wrong hands by designing a superhero suit enabling himself to do so. That story was intriguing to me and I wanted to learn more and watch Stark carry out his mission.

Unfortunately the story got sidetracked and the film did as well. It was riding along nicely on this path to redemption when it suddenly hit a brick wall and had to take a quick right and Stark as Iron Man had to go battle mecha-Jeff Bridges. While the effects and the battle itself are cool, as is the resulting press conference, I got thrown off track by the decision to abandon the film's original enemy (which I took to be terrorists) only to result in a big giant clichéd battle. It serves the film's purpose as a summer blockbuster but I think it was untrue to itself in doing so.

However, watching the film for a second time allowed me to enjoy the tangent the film takes since I knew it was coming. At home ludicrous movie decisions always work better as long as they are accompanied by flashing lights and big explosions and Iron Man fills the bill in those categories. It's just too bad the sarcastic nature of Tony Stark doesn't play as well the second time around as the wit behind Stark's character doesn't pack the same punch and becomes a bit too much. Some of the sarcasm starts to ooze a bit of pomp and your smile just won't be as big.

Criticisms aside, director Jon Favreau has done an excellent job in maintaining focus on Tony Stark as a character and allowed the Iron Man suit to simply be an extension of that character rather than an alter ego. There is billionaire style and flair in the Iron Man suit. "Give it a little candy apple red," Tony says to his computerized assistant when deciding what the suit should look like. I loved these scenes in the theater, and I still do, just not as much as I seem to now love the action. Yup, I seem to have flip-flopped and now want explosions and rubble when watching at home. That's the joy of repeat viewings when a film is good, there is always more to enjoy.

The character study is out of the way and now the explosions are front and center and the film felt slightly plodding at the beginning this time and I just wanted to get to the action and once the film gets there it doesn't stop. I say this more as an observation than a criticism. Iron Man, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight really separated themselves from the genre, as well as one another. They took on a tone rarely seen in films of this nature by being unique in their study of character and plot with a healthy dose of action.

Even though Iron Man opted for a big brawl scene with electricity shooting into the sky at the end, the method of getting there was drastically different than the majority of what we see from comic films nowadays and was a breath of fresh air in an industry determined to push aside risk in an attempt to duplicate the past.

In terms of the this video release, the Blu-ray disc comes equipped with a Dolby TrueHD track that sounds fantastic, but in terms of the picture, the colors seemed slightly muted at times. The black levels could have been much richer and darker and at times seemed more like a dark grey than a black. This may sound like a nitpick, but when folks are shelling out $35+ for a high-definition picture it better damn well be perfect.

The features on the two-disc set, however, are impressive. There is no audio commentary, but it isn't really needed (even though it would have been preferred) considering the massive behind-the-scenes docs and featurettes available. Disc one comes with a featurette looking at the comic history of Iron Man at Marvel and a host of deleted and extended scenes. The comic history wasn't exactly for me because I didn't really care, but I stuck with it for about 15 minutes and found it to be mildly interesting and certainly something comic fans would be more interested in. The deleted and extended scenes however included a few surprises. Overall it would appear the deletions made were in favor of toning down Stark's carefree lifestyle as at least three scenes involving sex were removed as well as a scene at the roulette table in which Stark loses $3 million on one spin.

Disc one also has a Blu-ray exclusive look at the four suits worn including the Mark I, II, III and Iron Monger suit. These are hi-res peeks and descriptions of various spots on each suit. The feature is a little bit slow moving and uninteresting and will really only interest a dedicated mind. The Blu-ray Live exclusive feature called "Iron Man IQ" was not yet active and won't be until the disc's release so I can't tell you how it worked, but I can tell you it is a user-driven feature that lets users create and share new multiple choice quizzes based on clips from the film. You can share and download quizzes from other users. This doesn't interest me in the slightest, but I will be interested to see how many people actually use it.

Disc two holds a wealth of goodies, but the big feature is the seven-part making of documentary called "I Am Iron Man" which takes a look at the process of bringing the film to the big screen from its earliest stages to its release. The documentary covers damn near everything you could possibly think of and what isn't in the doc is presented separately as a feature called "Wired: The Visual Effects of Iron Man", which takes a look at ... obviously ... the visual effects. The seven-part doc and the effects feature will eat up two hours and 16 minutes of your time and if you still have questions about how the film was made after that I really don't know what to tell you. One thing that is particularly interesting about a lot of the making-of stuff though is how much of it actually centers on footage shot that is seen more in the deleted scenes rather than the movie. It doesn't really matter, but it was an interesting decision.

Also on the second disc is a short look at Jeff Bridges and Robert Downey Jr. working through a scene together, screen tests with Downey, the fake news report from "The Onion" (watch that here), trailers and TONS of different galleries for concept art, tech, unit photography and posters. Seriously, the concept art galleries have sub categories, it's insane.

While I believe the picture on this Blu-ray could have been improved, I did compare it to the DVD release and there is a vast difference in quality. If you have a Blu-ray player of any sort I definitely recommend the HD version over the DVD. Edges are sharper and the soundtrack is just that much better. On top of that, I also must urge those of you not yet convinced on this film to buy it no matter what. Iron Man is one of the best superhero movies I have seen, despite my complaints, and it is a movie I will certainly watch multiple times as, I am sure, you will too.