I went to the 8 o'clock advanced showing tonight. I don't know how well advertised it was that the movie started playing Thursday night, but the theater wasn't a sell out. It was nearly full, however, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Everyone in it did a great job acting, and the character was really faithful to the days before he became an ass. It might be a little tame for some tastes, as there are only a handful of combat scenes, but I didn't mind personally... it had good pacing throughout.

I know Marvel is looking to establish the Marvel Universe with their self-financed movies, but after seeing Iron Man, I think it's perfectly situated to remain in it's own little world. This could easily be a James Bond-ish franchise, with Stark thwarting more real-world based would-be dictators and terrorists and such, instead of digging up appropriate comic-book villains for him to fight each outing. Either way, though, they've got me on board for a sequel. I think "The Dark Knight" will have to work to top this as the comic book movie of the summer.

Oh, and the new Hulk trailer with this one actually looked much better than that first trailer.