Iron Man

It may not be seen as such a big deal nowadays, but the 2008 film, Iron Man was a massive risk for Marvel when they decided to get this movie off the ground. After Marvel had suffered several failed attempts when it cam to their film adaptations, it was only after the success of movies like X-Men, Blade and Spider-Man that executives started to see the potential of comic book movies again, and Iron Man was hoping to be the starting point for a very ambitious idea the creatives had cooking up, a cinematic universe. Picking a relatively unknown hero for the starting point was already a little risky, and considering that a lot of writers were hesitant to join a Marvel specific movie featuring a lesser-known hero, it wasn’t looking great for the metal man. However, director Jon Favreau preserved his project and that determination to produce something good, original, and memorable managed to pay off with the final results, which unknowingly sparked a reaction that would change several components in the realm of pop culture. After just barely surviving an ambush that has left him needing an electromagnet heart in order to stay alive, playboy mechanical genius billionaire Tony Stark (played infamously by Robert Downey Junior.) finds himself at the mercy of The Ten Rings, a terrorist organisation that has been using his weapons to cause chaos and are now expecting him to create an ultimate weapon for them to use. Using this to his advantage, he creates a metal suit that has the capacity to destroy their camp and allows him to escape, now with the realizing that his weaponry which he has casually flaunted his life away on is being used to cause misery around the world. Upon being taken home and with a new sense of purpose, Tony decides to backtrack on his company’s mindset and stops making weapons, which causes problems for his father’s old partner, Obadiah Stane (played by Jeff Bridges). Wishing to keep this suit technology out of enemy hands, he creates the Iron Man suit to benefit the right people but discovers that Stane may want different results from his new technology. As a first entry to this new era of superhero movies, Iron Man takes a relatively stale character and refreshes him with a clean new coat of paint with great direction, acting and story to create a figure that will be infamous for years to come. It does have a pretty terrible final act and is a film that has a strong dated quality to it, but otherwise, this is a pretty great first impression.

While this origin story deviates slightly from comics, as the idea of being stuck in Vietnam apparently felt too ‘’of the times’’ when it was created, the story for this movie and for this character in general is brilliantly handled and does a lot with a premise that in all honesty, could be pretty stale. This type of ‘’Moses-esque’’ character transition from figure on top of the world, to guilt-ridden protector, works wonderfully for this role and does a lot of heavy lifting in regards to how the audience could view such a hero. Having this untouchable figure who feels they are better than everybody be stripped of his power and world views before returning a better man fits so nicely and manages to do so in quick succession as the movie brushes past an almost full hour in such a rapid pacing that no one would even realize. His transition from pompous jerk to a self-redeemer who is still finding his footing works great with the film’s tone, as it contains the correct amount of maturity that this kind of awareness would require, but not without a light-hearted angle that still sets it firmly with a different realm from the moody superhero films of the past. It feels like its trying to take this idea in a newer direction than what the original comic did as well as what previous superhero movies have done; everybody’s seen good-hearted people become superheros, but starting off with a womanizing bratty jerk is a nice change of pace, everybody is familiar with secret identities and the hero trying to balance the lifestyle of two people, but this may be one of the first movies to just have their hero fully admit it to the public, its touched with those nice adages that don’t overwhelm the watching experience. The overall script of the film by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway keeps things relatively simple in regards to what it focuses on, not wasting time much on sub plots and aimless deviations and instead knows that the best quality of its story is its hero and his dilemma, and the component is delved into just enough that its explored, but not to the point that it feels like a one-and-done situation, there is more to evolve from this point. It’s a surprisingly talk heavy comic-book film and is pretty sparse in regards to the action and usual super hero theatrics, but since Jon Favreau was never an action director, you can see how his natural strengths in filmmaker add to this movie, as all the character interactions are interesting with good free-flowing dialogue and with legit chemistry between the actors. While it surprisingly keeps you invested for a good long time, the last act almost feels like it was made by another person. Its pathetically handled with an awful villain motivation, terrible final battle that’s incredibly rushed and unfocused, and takes what was mostly a serious down-to-earth comic book movie and turns into a stupid Saturday-morning cartoon. It might have been unavoidable given the usual way in which comic book films were handled at the time (even the three positive examples listed previously have some terrible qualities to them), but it is a shame to see a project that flew so high, crash down so hard come the finale. An awful way to finish off the movie, but it thankfully recovers within its last few minutes with a final tagline that is forever ingrained into the space of super hero films.

The character of Iron Man was never the most popular role in Marvel comics, which was mostly dominated by names like Spider-Man and the X-Men (who had the benefit of being much more flawed and relatable heroes). Going in with that disadvantage, they needed to try to make this character likeable from the get-go, and have enough staying power that he could become a much longer-lasting name than he did original. While the handling of the backstory is very beneficial to the eventual outcome, its hard to ignore how much Robert Downey Junior attributed to how well this character was received. The movie would still be a good film, but it would be nowhere near as memorable as it was without his presence. It was thought behind the scenes that Downey Junior could relate with Tony Stark as they both had very similar issues in their lives; dealing with public image, troubled past that involved less-than-positive experiences, and struggling with father figures, and it truly feels like Robert Downey embraces that mindset to the point where it doesn’t even feel like he’s acting. He finds that perfect balance of pushy arrogance and legitimate charisma where it can work both for when he’s a jerk and when he isn’t.  He really does run the movie and brings it to new heights that would only grow higher as he kept appear in more Marvel films down the line. Other actors like Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard manage to be pretty likeable with their minimal parts, but some of their line deliveries can be a little too overplayed and it can come off as a little gimmicky, but never to an annoying level. The villain is where the movie faces another major hurdle and its again connected to the last act. Jeff Bridges actually does a pretty decent job as the villain during the majority of the movie when he has to play it straight next to Downey Junior, but as soon as he gets in his own metal suit, the dumb lines and ridiculous look makes it laughably bad. That mixed with his weak motivation and dumb plan sullies a lot of the good will built up before.

For a flashy superhero that would need a lot of high-power movies to feel more powerful than some of the previous hero examples shown on film (which had more down-to-earth power sets), the action does need to feel a little upped. Most of the effects don’t look too bad considering how this movie was a mostly self-financed film with Paramount Pictures distributing, with a budget of $130 – 140 million which is pretty solid. Most of this mainly comes down to not only the actual physical suits that were created for some of the scenes, but also because most of the effects aren’t anything that new for this kind of story. Due to the limited action and the basic nature of the action, it allows the visuals to be more simplistic and show that it doesn’t need to go too far with its action. That does come with its own negative though as the action for the movie is really nothing special and no scene really stands out because of it. Because the movie has this strange almost ‘’war shooting’’ element to its action, it’s not trying to be overly creative or that unique, so it mostly just revolves around standing around and shooting things. Once and a while, there’s a cool shot when he’s up in the sky, but usually its mostly shot in a pretty traditional way. This is a movie where you can feel a dated element, not just from the general apparel of the film, but also from the cinematography by Matthew Libatique that can film things like its out of something like a Call Of Duty shooting section, and the musical score from Ramin Djawadi which has a strong heavy-metal influence to it. That mixed with the really messy climax leaves the film pretty lacking in its action.

Iron Man could have easily failed and prevented one of the biggest landmarks in comic book history from ever coming to pass. It was balancing a lot of things going wrong; making a movie that no one had faith in, a movie that was constantly shifting plots and actors, one that was bringing in a character that (despite surely having some fans) wasn’t a household name that would instantly be recognized, and a movie that was promising something massive that previous movies had done and failed at before. The positives of this movie were thankfully so welcoming for the time that people started to feel like they could actually pull this connected cinematic universe idea off, and if only they knew the road that this would take them down in the future. With good acting, tight directing, and a fantastic handling of its story and leading character, despite its weak villain and final act, Iron Man is one to look back on and see where it all started. Suit up and relive the glory of the Robert Downey Junior once again.