Movie Review: Iron Man

Iron Man (2008)

Okay, yeah, this one took me quite a fair bit to write. I had intended to do this all the way back in February, but things just kept being pushed backwards and backwards. 

Anyway, rewind back to 2008, where a single movie about Iron Man is released to the public. Where previously only Batman, Superman, X-Men, Spider-Man and the odd standalone movie or two really only made a splash in the public consciousness, Marvel Studios released a single movie. A single movie that would be the start of a massive saga. I'm pretty sure that if you somehow are reading this blog, you know who Iron Man is, and it's as likely that you've watched this movie and at least know about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

But the international franchise behemoth started off from a simple, solid movie. And that movie is Iron Man. Throughout this month, we'll be reviewing every single movie in the MCU.

And the plot of this movie is honestly pretty simple. It's a by-the-books origin story for a superhero, where they fall into tragedy but then gain a superpower, and then emerge stronger in order to use their newfound power to fight for the weak. That's the gist of almost all superheroes out there, and while the specifics certainly differ, that's basically what this movie is about.

What made it so special, though, is how well it's done. Sure, the visuals are pretty awesome -- the Iron Man suit looks badass, whether it be the clunky furnace-like Mark I, or the far more refurbished and now iconic Mark III, with its repulsor sounds and the three-point superhero slam and whatnot. And it's a metallic robot armour, the concept itself is just straight-up awesome. It straddles the line between the ridiculousness of these superhero powers and just being maaaaybe realistic enough that it's almost feasible on a harder sci-fi sense. 

But what really sold this movie, I think, was simply the story of Tony Stark, as played by Robert Downey Jr. And I'm not going to undersell the rest of the supporting cast, but I don't think it's hyperbole that in this movie, Downey's performance is what carried the heavy lifting. Paired with a pretty tight script and the cool giant-robot-superhero fight scenes, and suddenly it's compelling because of the story of Tony Stark. 

I'm not the biggest fan of the in medias res opening, but it kind of works, somewhat. We are introduced to Tony Stark, a huge, smarmy billionaire who inherited the defense contractor company Stark Industries. He's not like, going around kicking puppies or anything, and is clearly a charismatic man, but he's ignorant. And that, I think, is what eventually galvanized him. A child prodigy, full of charisma, and filthy rich, Tony goes around not really giving a shit about anything or anyone, and his life is full of booze, women, money, and generally being a bit of a douchebag. 

Tony ends up being abducted after a weapons demonstration by a bunch of terrorists called the Ten Rings, and gets to see first-hand the sheer horror of the unregulated weapons that his company and his family's legacy has done. While under captivity, Stark befriends what's essentially his mentor, Ho Yinsen (Shaun Toub), and while he is wounded and they had to use an electromagnet to keep a bunch of shrapnel from reaching Tony's heart (oh, old-school comic book origins) after a bit of a conversation, Tony manages to outwit his captors by building the first Iron Man armour, and also creating a miniaturized arc reactor -- an energy source that's a much, much smaller version of one of his father's inventions. 

Okay, so that's his superpower. He invents stuff, and this time, he invents a robotic suit of armour. But during the escape, Yinsen is killed, and the movie really makes Yinsen and Stark's short relationship really count. The fact that Yinsen's death is explicitly caused by him running out to hold off the Ten Rings terrorists to buy Tony time? Yeah, I feel like beyond anything else in Tony Stark's backstory, that's the one event that really hammers home just how much people are suffering and dying, and he could've help prevent all of this. 

Tony returns back to civilization and basically disbands Stark Industries' weapons program, and throughout all of this we get to see Tony's interactions with three characters -- his long-suffering best friend Colonel James Rhodes (played by Terrence Howard in this movie); his secretary and kinda-sorta love interest Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and his business mentor and vaguely father-like figure Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges). All three of them are really fun, particularly Obadiah, who's particularly great when he hams things up. Rounding out the cast are the soft-spoken government man Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) who really just wants a meeting with Stark and Tony's loyal driver Happy Hogan (director Jon Favreau).

The movie is also pretty much focused at Tony, though, and we get to see a couple of montages of his trial-and-error as he develops and improves on his armour, creating a sleeker, more stable suit with his two adorable arm-robots (Dummy! I love Dummy!) and as the world gets confused about Tony suddenly getting accountability, he basically realizes that the only people he can trust is basically Pepper. Especially when Obadiah Stane continues to try and pry into Tony's miniature arc reactor. Obadiah is... he's pretty basic as far as villains go, if we're being honest, but Jeff Bridges's performance is pretty great and if nothing else, he's pretty memorable. 

Ultimately, though, when Tony finds out from the reporter he screwed earlier in the movie* that Stark weaponry are still being produced and used to attack Yinsen's home village of Gulmira, we get Iron Man finally taking matters into his own hands. With red and gold armour, this whole scene of Iron Man fighting against terrorists is pretty damn badass. The tank-destroying missile; the slow 'target-and-calmly-shoot-missiles' moment; the modulated voice; and even the little fight-escape bit against two fighter jets are all very, very well-done. 

*The blatant fanservice between Christine Everheart's sex scene and the brief stewardess pole-dancers are things that totally would never fly in a superhero movie released in this decade.

I haven't talked too much about Pepper, have I? She actually has a rather significant amount of screentime in this movie, and I actually do like how she's built up not just as 'oh, Tony likes her'. And Tony does, but I really also do like that Pepper is very much established as a confidante, as someone Tony trusts, and while there certainly are a couple moments of romantic awkwardness, I do like that their romantic relationship is left up in the air by the end of the movie, and that she actually gets a nice little sub-plot of helping Tony find information about the depths of Obie's betrayal. 

Obadiah Stane basically causes a company coup to oust Tony as CEO, and through Pepper's little espionage, we find out that not only is Obadiah very much interested in profiteering, he's also the one responsible for sending the Ten Rings after Tony in the first place. And, well, after getting rid of the Ten Rings, Obadiah's salvaged the rest of Tony's original armour to create one of his own. Obadiah disables Tony and steals his arc reactor, but with the help of Dummy and Pepper not throwing away the original arc reactor from earlier in the movie, Tony gets to suit up and fight Obadiah in his Iron Monger armour. 

Again, not too much to say about the fight. It's well-done, and pretty impressive especially considering the time that this movie was made. The fight on the streets, and later on the little Chekov's Gun of Tony having actually taken his equipment on test-drives and knows all about the defrosting issue of flying too high? Pretty neat stuff. With Pepper's help, Obadiah gets taken down... and, in probably one of the most iconic moments and subversions in these superhero shows, Tony decides to not follow the cards handed to him as a cover story by the helpful government S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Coulson and declares to the world that he is 'Iron Man'. 

And... and more than anything, I really do like that a lot of Tony's themes in this movie revolves around accountability and redemption. The contrast between pre-Iron-Man Tony and how he's still snarks around but is clearly putting himself in harm's way for the good of others? Especially since Tony clearly feels a massive sense of guilt for letting Yinsen die and not stopping all of Stark Industries's bloody history. The themes aren't really shoehorned down our throats, but it's clear that the writer and the actor involved really wanted to portray these themes in a way, leading to Tony Stark's character arc in this movie feeling pretty cohesive. Toss in the good pacing, a pretty tight script and cool robot-on-robot action fighting... yeah, this first movie is still a pretty damn good one. 

________________________________________

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

Since I've already done most of the actual "origins of these heroes in the comics" when I covered the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon (and because it'd take too much time to talk about each and every character), this will cover the a bunch of recurring things I'll talk about, as well as actual Easter Eggs. I don't want this to get overly-long like they do in some of my other reviews.

• Post-Credits Scene: The very first one ever! Nick Fury shows up to talk to Iron Man about how he's not the only special person in the world, and talks about an "Avengers Initiative". 
• Stan the Man: Stan Lee's first MCU cameo is as a guest in the Stark gala, who Tony identifies as 'Hef'. Whether Stan is meant to be playing Hugh Hefner or if Tony just mistakes 'Stan' for Hefner is debatable. 
• Future Movie Foreshadowing: In addition to the Avengers Initiative being mentioned by Fury in the post-credits scene, we also get Coulson introducing us to SHIELD; Roxxon being name-dropped; and Rhodey looking at the silver-coloured Mark II armour and saying 'next time, baby', and the character gets to suit up as War Machine in the next movie. 
• Movie Superhero Codenames:
• Tony doesn't come up with the name 'Iron Man' until reading a newspaper near the end of the movie, but then swiftly adopts it with the iconic "I am Iron Man".
• Coulson kept reintroducing his agency with their long, extended name before finally shortening it to S.H.I.E.L.D. at the end of the movie. 
• While Obadiah Stane is never referred to by his comic book counterpart's supervillain name, he does name-drop it while talking to Tony, about how they're both 'Iron Mongers'. 
• Favourite Action Scene: I'm going to include this one here for every MCU movie. This is a tough one -- I really like the final Iron Man/Iron Monger battle, but I think my favourite still has to be Mark III's first deployment as it absolutely eviscerates the Ten Rings and Tony has to actually struggle to not kill the fighter jets. 
• Funniest Line: Say it with me: "Tony Stark was able to build this! In a cave! With a box of scraps!"
• Iron Man's cartoon theme is his cell phone ring tone. 
• When Iron Man is having his suit taken off in his basement, an incomplete Captain America shield could be seen on a desk in the background.