Robert Downey Jr plays Tony Stark, a billionaire industrialist who is captured in Afghanistan while demonstrating his company's latest super-weapons.

Forced by terrorists to construct a missile, a mortally-injured Stark instead creates a mechanical bio-suit to stay alive and escape.
Realising that he can serve the forces of good instead of the almighty dollar, Stark uses his technological know-how and vast fortune to create another suit of armour; a heavily armed, flight-capable exoskeleton that soon becomes the front for his crime-fighting alter-ego, Iron Man.

Gwyneth Paltrow plays Stark's doe-eyed (and ludicrously named) love interest Pepper Potts, while a bald Jeff Bridges plays the film's equally ridiculously titled villain, Obadiah Stane, aka the Iron Monger.

Director and self-confessed comic-book geek Jon Favreau cut his teeth on family films like Elf and Zathura, but looks to have brought a maturity to Iron Man that will please die-hard fans.

Expect an effects-heavy action romp that'll sit somewhere between the bright cheerful Fantastic Four films and Christopher Nolan's dark, brooding new Batman films.

Iron Man (12A) is currently showing at Aylesbury Odeon.