Directed by: John Favreau
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow
Other Actors of Note: Terrence Howard, Samuel L. Jackson
Plot: Tony Stark is the complete playboy who also happens to be an engineering genius. While in Afghanistan demonstrating a new missile he's captured and wounded. His captors want him to assemble a missile for them but instead he creates an armored suit and a means to prevent his death from the shrapnel left in his chest by the attack. He uses the armored suit to escape. Back in the U.S. he announces his company will cease making weapons and he begins work on an updated armored suit only to find that Obadiah Stane, his second in command at Stark industries has been selling Stark weapons to the insurgents. He uses his new suit to return to Afghanistan to destroy the arms and then to stop Stane from misusing his research. Taken from www.imdb.com.
In the wake of the mediocre "X-Men: The Last Stand", the criminally underrated "Ghost Rider", and the overly-hated but disappointing sequel "Spider-Man 3" Marvel studios said "You know what, you bastards have been fucking up our properties for years and from now on if anybody screws up movies based on our characters, it's gonna be us!"
The first movie coming out of Marvel studios was "Iron Man", a movie that by all right should suck large amounts of ass. I mean, it's a comic about a rich prick who develops a super electronic armor that effectively kills a lot of people, he has no memorable villains beyond the most blatant Chinese stereotype since Nicholas Cage played Fu Manchu in "Werewolf Women of the SS", and it's done by the director of "Elf."
However, facing against all odds, "Iron Man" accidently ended up being great. Director John Favreau stayed true to the comics (despite the fact that in current comic continuity Tony Stark is a gigantic asshole.)
I know I kind of missed the bus on this review, but this blog was started too long after I saw the movie in theaters. So now with the new DVD release I've decided to review it. Don't like it? Bite me.
Of course it's the story of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), a millionare playboy/mechanical prodigy who builds weapons. When he is kidnapped in the Middle East and realizes his company is double dealing he builds a suit of armor to help him escape.
Upon getting stateside Stark ask for two things, an American Hamburger (for some reason he goes to Burger King for this, which is not unlike going to Australia and eating at the Outback Steakhouse) and to call a press conference where he announces that Stark Industries will no longer make weapons.
Of course this pisses off his double-dealing business associate Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) who already seems to have it out for Tony (presumably because he pissed on his Persian rug, which really tied the room together.) And ultimately it ends with a robot suit fight awesome enough to make a Japanese nerd cream in his pants.
Robert Downey Jr. was made for the role of Tony Stark. Looking back I don't know how I ever pictured anyone else in the roll. He captures the witty sarcastic womanizing drunken charm of Tony Stark perfectly and there's not a line spoken by Downey Jr. that is not wonderful. Seriously this movie could have been Tony Stark talking for an hour and a half and I would have enjoyed it.
Jeff Bridges is good once you get over the fact that he looks entirely different from any other movie he's been in, but you get used to it. This is Bridges first time as a villain and he plays a sufficiently menacing character, a sort of behind the scenes menace who is doing all the evil deeds behind the unknowing figure head's back. So essentially he's Dick Cheney. (HAW HAW POLITICAL HUMOR! Okay I'm done.)
Gwyneth Paltrow is charming and lovable as Pepper Potts, Tony's assistant and halfway romantic interest. It was refreshing that she never crosses the threshhold over to becoming the actual romantic interest, the relationship is explored more subtly than usual and it was nice to see. However Paltrow isn't particularly wowing in the role, she was good but there was nothing particularly memorable about her performance.
Terrence Howard was as equally a good choice for the role of James Rhodes, the man who would ultimately become War Machine. He's a perfect straight man to Downey Jr's off the wall antics and it really is a shame that he won't be returning for the next movie. I'm sure Don Cheadle will do a fine job but I'll still miss Howard in the roll in the same way I miss Sam Elliot as General Thunder Bolt Ross and Michael Gough as Alfred Pennyworth.
Samuel L. Jackson seems just as gimmicky in the role of Nick Fury as the likeness of Samuel L. Jackson seemed in "The Ultimates." Maybe Jackson will change my mind on the subject, but right now I think I still prefer the made-for-TV David Hasselhoff Nick Fury to Sam Jackson's rendition.
As I said, director John Favreau really did an excellent job bringing Iron Man to life. The suit looks wonderful, obviously borrowing more from the Ultimate Iron-Man look with just a touch of the classic.
The Mark-1 Suit trul does look like ther original Iron-Man suit brought ot life and it was one of the more impressive things in the film. The CGI is well done and looks as close to real as one can reasonably expect.
The Iron Monger suit is the real showpiece here, though. Contrary to popular belief Obadiah Stane and The Iron Monger were in the comics. Though the Iron Monger more closely resmebles the Parnell Jacobs War Machine Suit than the design its based on.
The fight between the two suits is incredibly reminiscent of the fight between Murphy and Cain at the climax of "Robocop 2" in fact, many of Iron Man's big fight scenes are somewhat reminiscent of "Robocop" in general.
Now enjoying this movie, I couldn't help but draw parallels to "Ghost Rider" which I rather enjoyed but most people hated. Indeed pretty much every problem listed by critics for that movie is present here.
The CG looks real but not real enough, there's not enough appearances by the title character (I think Ghost Rider actually appeared more than Iron Man), the love story is dull an uneccesarry, the villain is a second stringer and not terribly interesting, there's a build up that the title hero will be helped by a second character similar to him only to be let down (Caretake in "Ghost Rider" and War Machine in "Iron Man") and the final battle is a bit anticlimactic at its end.
I think what it comes down to is Downey Jr. is just a far better actor than Nicholas Cage. Cage was undoubtedly the main problem with "Ghost Rider." (In my opinion the only big problem.)
As I said, Favreau brought the character into the movie perfectly. Hearkening back to the comic's beginnings with the Mark I armor and having the theme song from the old 60s "Iron-Man" cartoon appear 3 times (In the casino, on Rhodes' phone as Tony's personalized ringtone, and during the awards ceremony)
Some of the choices I found questionable, like Jarvis now being a computer system as opposed to a knock-off Alfred Pennyworth and Yin-Sin now being middle-eastern as opposed to Asian and having his name changed to Yensen, but I got used to it.
Though I found the same problem with "Iron-Man" the movie that I found with "Iron-Man" the comic. Tony Stark's whole rise to glory hinges on that he is tired of being a merchant of death and wants to stop all the killing, but the fact is, he kills a lot of people in this movie. Granted all of these people are clearly labeled "enemy" but it still seems a bit hypocritical. But that's not Favreau's fault as the comic always had that problem as well, the movie just moves on and pretends not to notice that Iron Man is blowing up terrorists like there's no tomorrow.
It's a fun movie that's very faithful to the comic. It doesn't try to be more than it is, it doesn't come off as pretentious or overstylized and manages to stay true to its roots. In retrospect I found this movie on the whole to be more enjoyable then DC's golden boy this summer "The Dark Knight."
I give "Iron Man" a 5 out of 5. Buy it, watch it, love it.
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