I saw Iron Man last Friday afternoon. It wasn’t bad - and this is coming from someone who is not a fan of the comic book superhero movie genre.

Here were my impressions:

1. Our students had just finished their final mid-term exam, so the theater was crawling with adolescents decked out in their school uniforms. Which was fine except that they ate about half of my popcorn while I was waiting to enter the theater. Little cretins.

Just kidding, our students are (mostly) great.

2. Dug Robert Downey Jr.

3. Appreciated the attempt to build a storyline and decent dialogue.

4. Was that really Jeff Bridges? Didn’t realize it until about 15 minutes in.

5. Cool Iron Man suit.

6. Would have liked to have seen a little more Iron Man action (attempts at storyline notwithstanding).

7. Gwyneth Paltrow. Mmehh.

8. Osama - You payin’ attention?

9. Black Sabbath rocks!

On a scale of 1 to 5 (1: avoid at all costs; 2: see it if you want, but don’t say i recommended it; 3: not bad if you’ve got time to spare; 4: if you’re like me you’re gonna like it; 5: must see), I give Iron Man a solid “3″.

Since I’m on the subject, I decided to put together a list of some superhero comic book movies with The Iceberg’s personal ratings.

Flash Gordon (5) - “Flash….aaaahhhh!”…’Nuff said.

Batman (5) - Jack Nicholson’s Joker is still the coolest villain yet. Interested to see Heath Ledger’s Joker.

X2 (X-Men 2) (5) - A little biased because this was the first dvd I bought for my home theater system. Cool on surround sound.

Superman (5) - What can I say? Good popcorn-eating movie.

Batman Begins (4) - Christian Bale is the coolest Batman. Good cast. Might have given it a “5″ except that I originally bought the dvd in Thailand and it kept stopping midway through. As a result I didn’t see the end of the movie for about three months.

Superman II (4) - Not quite sure why I like this movie. Perhaps because, when I first saw it, there was a preview of the war movie “The Big Red One”, which was cause for a lot of snickers at the time.

Iron Man (3) - Read impressions above.

X-Men (3) - Liked X2 much more.

Hulk (3) - Saw this movie with my nephew. Liked it much more than I expected. I usually hate movies that overemphasize computer graphics, but for some reason this one didn’t bother me.

X-Men: The Last Stand (3) - The X-Men series is the strongest, in my opinion.

Ghost Rider (2) - Didn’t have high expectations for this movie, so wasn’t disappointed. Motorcycles were cool.

Batman & Robin (2) - Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze. Not good. Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy. Good.

Batman Forever (2) - Tommy Lee Jones’ character pissed me off.

Superman Returns (2) - I remember seeing a clip of the airplane falling from the sky and thought it was really cool. Later, when I saw the movie, I found it didn’t keep my attention.

Spider-Man 2 (2) - The best of the worst comic book superhero series.

Superman III (1) - Richard Pryor. Nice try.

Batman Returns (1) - Danny DeVito’s character REALLY pissed me off.

Hellboy (1) - Like Ghost Rider, my expectations were low…and they were met.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1) - I saw this movie. I’m sure of it. But I don’t remember anything about it.

Spider-Man 3 (1) - After watching Spider-Man 2, I thought that perhaps “3″ would be alright. Nope.

Spider-Man (1) - Positively inane. Story: stupid. Dialogue: forced. Graphics: lacking. The only redeeming feature from this movie was watching twenty-something Korean guys pretending to shoot webs out of their wrists after the lights in the theater came on.

Catwoman (1) - Horrible. Though Haley Barry was, well, you know.

Daredevil (n/a) - Haven’t seen it.

Fantastic Four (n/a) - Haven’t seen it, though I don’t know why. Because Jessica Alba is, well, you know.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (n/a) - Haven’t seen it.