I liked the Iron Man Super Bowl commercial, but it was missing something. Robert Downey Jr. The commercial didn't give us enough of him as Tony Stark. Thankfully the next trailer for the movie - what I believe to be the last before release - rectifies that in a big way.

I had a chance to watch the new trailer, which has some unfinished effects (but includes that PS2 looking Iron Man shooting the tank bit from the Super Bowl commercial (could it be that it's supposed to look like this? The quote from the title of this article comes from a moment where Pepper Potts walks in on Tony Stark in a full body mocap suit as he is doing some VR fight training)), and I have to say that this one kicks ass. The music is still a little meatheaded - it opens with ACDC's Back in Black and closes with Audioslave's Cochise - but the tone of the thing is perfect. The structure is similar to previous trailers:

We open with Tony in Afghanistan, which is a nice opportunity to show off some Downey humor. The attack happens, he gets captured, he builds the prototype, he escapes. Stark returns to America, where he is met by Pepper Potts ("Red eyes? Tears for your long lost boss?" "Tears of joy. I hate job hunting.") and then we see Stark's supermodern house, which talks to him.

The next sequences have the creation of the suit, with voice over by Stark explaining that he had a change of heart in captivity and wants to help the people he used to hurt. Obadiah Stane goes to Afghanistan to get the grey Iron Man suit schematics. Tony learns to fly in the Iron Man armor (poorly). We get some inside the helmet shots of Stark's face as he's flying and then crashing. Rhodey pops up with the schematics for the new armor, which is all gold, and Stark tells him to throw in some race car red. And then there's a bunch of action - Iron Man and jets, Iron Monger grabbing a passing motorcycle out from under a guy and nailing Iron Man with it, a nuclear looking punch to the ground - and then Tony Stark addressing what is likely his board of directors: 'There's been some speculation I've been running around as a super hero. Let's face it - I'm just not the hero type. Clearly.'

It's a terrific trailer, even with some crudely rendered bits that will surely get cleaned up before it hits theaters. If you're like me and was modestly underwhelmed by that Super Bowl spot, this trailer is going to return Iron Man to the top of your expectation list for sure.