Iron Man
Directed by: Jon Favreau
Written by: Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Shaun Toub, Faran Tahir
out of ten:
The summer movie season has officially begun, and after being teased for months and months with spectacular trailers, posters and images – Iron Man has landed. Its action set pieces are extremely entertaining, it has excellent special effects and Robert Downey Jr.’s performance of billionaire playboy Tony Stark is worth the price of admission alone. Iron Man is a must see and ranks among some of the best comic book movies to date.
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is the CEO of Stark Industries which produces advance weapon systems for the U.S. military. Stark lives the life as a hard drinking, rich playboy ladies man, but he is also a genius who has designed countless ground-breaking inventions. On a recent trip to Afghanistan to show off the latest model of one of his missiles, Stark is kidnapped by terrorists, and forced to build a missile for them. Stark sees that his company’s weapons are falling into the hands of terrorists and being used against the people he thought he was protecting.
Instead of building the missile he constructs something much better – a suit of armor which becomes his ticket to freedom. When Tony gets back to America he is a changed man, his eyes have been opened, and he begins to modify his new suit and protect the people he’s been hurting.
Iron Man follows a simple formula, but executes it well. In the beginning we have the origin story followed by some great action pieces in the middle and ending with Iron Man doing battle with the movies, decent but not great, villain, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) aka Iron Monger. The origin story is where the movie really works, with Stark being held hostage, and designing the Mark-1 suit to coming back home and fine tuning his design with the help of his assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and longtime friend Jim Rhodes (Terrance Howard).
There are some humorous scenes of Stark learning to fly, and some banter between him and his robotic assistants, along with Jarvis – the artificial intelligence system that over sees his entire house/operation. Things like this might sound a little campy, but thanks to an amazing performance from Downey Jr. they never feel that way.
Once stark has his suit yup and running we’re treated to a couple of great action sequences where Stark returns to his captives form some ass kicking, as well as going toe-to-toe with a couple of fighter jets. There entertaining action scenes with some amazing special effects, but unfortunately, there really the only good action moments in the entire movie.
The only real downfall with Iron Man, and why it isn’t the greatest comic-book movie we’ve seen, lies with the ending and the main villain. The opening and middle of this movie are so strong that it’s a real shame when the ending falls short. It seems to happen with most first superhero flicks, where the setup is great and the middle action scenes are really entertaining, but then the ending seems to lack any real direction.
The good news however, is that Jon Favreau and company now have their feet wet and are in a great position to deliver an amazing follow up.
Overall, Iron Man is an extremely entertaining movie, and despite some flaws in the end, is one that manages to live up to the hype.
Thanks, nice Review. I have plans to see this with some friends tonight & it’s exciting to hear that it’s such a good movie. I’ve been worried that “only the trailers are good” but from what I hear it’s well worth the ticket price…awesome!
Next, I can’t wait for the Dark Knight Batman movie. it looks great too!
Thanks, Tommy
Tommy | May 4th, 2008
I have to disagree with the ending and the villain. I think it’s exciting what they did in terms of knowing there will be a sequel. Iron Man didn’t fight Iron Monger at full strength which means we have yet to see the goods. Also, his victory was a team effort with Gwenyth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts. That’s entirely refreshing to see. You would think Tony Stark would be a glory fiend, but his loving dependence with his assistant is consistent. The ending is also new. The implications of a superhero publicly confirming their identity is something films haven’t explored to great depth. It’s not typical which is great. The ending may have felt cut off because the ride was so fun.
John | May 11th, 2008
Having been a comics fan most of my life, but never really into Iron Man, I think this movie has achieved a notable feat in elevating a character to something it’s never even achieved on the page.
If you based Tony on the comics, he would’ve been a cross betw. David Hasselhoff & Geraldo Rivera. BAD, BAD, BAD.
But by taking a chance, and sticking to the core of the original story (w/ minor updates) and setting the whole thing up like a roller coaster you just want to get back on again, Favreau & team have delivered a serious sucker punch to embattled box office sales.
This movie is anything but serious. And yet, in its own way, it allows the audience to make light of geo-politics.
You can sit through Iron Man & have ANY political leaning whatsoever, and feel like it addressed those gray areas that we all have, by smacking a comic face on it, allowing you to forget your cares for a few hours, and walk out more than a bit more alleviated than when you walked in.
There nothing heavy about Iron Man, but the 50 some lb. suit Downey dons, in those scenes where he dons it.
I want to see it again already.
Djo | May 13th, 2008