“Iron Man” is so much fun, I didn’t want it to be over. And if anyone tries to say Robert Downey Jr. isn’t cut out to be an action hero, they’re just dead wrong.

Fans of the comic books and other purists may be disappointed — I have no idea. But I haven’t read a comic book since my “Archie and Jughead” days in the 1970s, so I don’t know any of the “Ironman” canon. I watched this movie with no prior knowledge of characters or plot and I loved it.

Mr. Downey is scrumpdillyicious — and darn funny too — in his role as Tony Stark. He’s got the chops to see this one through many sequels.

Is it tired to see the billionaire playboy role again? Yeah, but it’s also true that we do love to see movies about the bad boys. And by the time the first quarter of the movie is over, Stark has seen the light about what his company’s weapons are doing out in the real world and sets out to do something about it.

Jeff Bridges is glorious as Obadiah Stane (how great is that name?) and I heard whispers go through the moviegoers around me as they realized that Bridges was on the screen. With his shaved head and full, bushy beard, he is definitely not playing his usual charming character.

Gwyneth Paltrow is Stark’s assistant Pepper Potts and is just OK. I’m not a big fan and all I could think about when she went to do some scary and dangerous work for Stark was, “Why didn’t she wear some shoes she could run in?” No, as female characters the world over are so stupid enough to do, she showed up in heels so high and spikey she could hardly walk in them, much less run. Stupid.

Terrence Howard is great but doesn’t have enough to do. I’m hoping that a long glance cast at one of Stark’s inventions toward the end of the movie means he’ll have more action in the sequel.

Shaun Toub is touching as Yinsen, the man who saves Stark’s life in Afghanistan, and surprises him during his escape.

The movie itself doesn’t slow down. Stark, head of a weapons manufacturing company, is captured in Afghanistan, comes home to get to work on his new invention and then sets about fighting crime. Of course, the moments in Stark’s lab as he experiments with his iron man suit are the funniest. The robots that inhabit the lab are imbued with such human properties you can’t help but think of them that way. Stark himself does as he talks to them and argues with them to great comic effect.

I’ve noticed an interesting trend about movie reporters who bed their sources. In “Iron Man,” Leslie Bibb plays Vanity Fair reporter Christine Everhart who acts all tough in the questioning but then can’t resist the charms of Tony Stark and ends up having a romp with him, only to end up being sent out as “the trash” by Pepper Potts the next morning. Nice.

In “Thank You for Smoking,” Katie Holmes played reporter Heather Holloway who also bedded her source, Aaron Eckhart’s Nick Naylor. I don’t know what planet they’re working from, but I think it’s far more likely to have a male reporter get involved with a source than the other way around. I’m just sayin’.

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