The first Iron Man film was ok. Downey is a good actor, though I think he's a weird choice for Stark. Shawn Taub was good. Jeff Bridges was good. But I was pissed off about Samuel L Jackson being Nick Fury. I think it's racist to change the race of a character, at least if the character is well-established, important and popular. I like Jackson (outside of Star Wars, that is) and I think his performance in Black Snake Moan was oscar-worthy, but Nick Fury isn't black. I mean, people would (rightly) be pretty pissed off if they cast a white woman as Storm of the X-Men and I don't see how this is any different. I think Sam Rockwell is pretty weird casting for Justin Hammer, but I guess they have no interest in being faithful to the comics in this. Scarlett Johansson isn't my idea of Black Widow, but I don't have any objection to her doing the role (whereas I found Sam Rockwell fucking annoying in the last film I saw him in).

Somebody mentioned The Rise of the Silver Surfer. Wasn't that the second Fantastic Four film? I saw the first one and decided it was the dumbest shittiest superhero movie I'd ever seen (and that's saying something) and decided to watch no more Fantastic Four movies. Some really bad casting there. Fantastic Four was never Marvel's greatest property, but more could have been made of it than what they did. So many superhero movies are soundly disappointing.