"Iron Man"

The movie opens with a caravan escorting Tony Stark through the Middle Eastern desert and a very funny line by Tony, “I feel like you’re taking me to court.” With a few laughs with the other soldiers, the caravan gets ambushed. Tony for some reason escapes the Humvee, even though he was told to stay three times, and almost gets obliterated from a torpedo that displayed his name. He tries to get away from it only to be caught up in the explosion. In the rest of the scene, I couldn’t tell whether or not he had a Kevlar vest on, but shrapnel had pierced his chest regardless. If he didn’t have a Kevlar vest, why didn’t the military give him one? He’s supplying them weapons. If he did have a Kevlar vest, why didn’t it work? Why doesn’t he have his own Stark vest that he created to withstand his own creations?

Then we travel back in time to one of the two magical times before the said event: 36 hours earlier. The other is 72. Of course, Tony is so egotistical that he doesn’t show up to accept his award at an awards ceremony. After the ceremony, he gets confronted by Vanity Fair reporter Christine Everson, who asks if Tony loses an hour of sleep over the weapons he creates, to which he replied that he would lose a few with her. AND SHE BOUGHT THAT! The next morning, the “famous” Pepper Potts kicks her out the next morning. I can only say she's "famous" because I don’t know the names of any of the other love interests in the MCU.

Cut back to Tony in the desert. I buy that Tony was able to replicate the arc reactor, that powers his factory, to power the electromagnet in his chest. Actually, pause there for a moment; the electromagnet is preventing the remaining bits of shrapnel from entering his heart. So what are the bits doing? Floating around in Tony’s bloodstream? That can kill him regardless. Will the magnet ever collect the bits? Will Tony be able to walk without the arc reactor in his chest? So many unanswered questions! Okay, continuing.
I also buy that Tony was able to build a shoddy suit to escape with. But what about his friend that saved his life? He gets killed because Tony didn’t make him one too. Tony walks out of the cave armed with guns, and he flies out of danger with the weapons exploding beneath him. Where did he have guns in his cell? Where did he get the fuel? He only had twelve torpedoes to work with on the Jericho missile. That can’t be enough to even take off. What was his plan after that before the suit got obliterated when he crashed into the sand? What would have happened to him if the suit remained intact and he flies to the nearest US base where they think some knock-off Iron Giant is coming toward them going “Superman”?

Then we watch Tony spend the rest of the movie building the suit. In the meantime, he hasn’t investigated who sold the terrorists his weapons. He gets locked of his own company. His best friend, Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes, is advising him against flying the suit at all. Then it all comes out when his father’s best friend tells him that he was the one who put a hit out on Tony and that he was the one who locked him out of Stark Industries. Jeff Bridges felt wrong for this film. The Dude plays Obadiah Stane, a power-hungry psychopath that was willing to kill anyone who got in his way, including Tony, the terrorists, and possibly Tony’s father, Howard Stark. In the "36 hours before" montage, Howard suddenly died, Obadiah steps in, and then Tony took over. Then Tony almost dies, he shuts down his weapons manufacturing and gets locked out of his company.
Tony and Stane finally came head to head in an epic showdown Malibu Beach that ended in Pepper frying the Stark factory's electrical grid and electrocuting Stane. The next morning Tony gives a press conference explaining the incident, and he reveals that he is the mysterious "Iron Man."

I felt the movie opened the MCU properly. The whole film seemed like it could have been a decent stand-alone film. It is one of the few films that can hint an inevitable franchise, and in this case, all it took was 17 seconds for it to explode. Well, maybe the whole movie because Agent Coulson from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, which was the running joke for being ridiculously long, kept butting in to the point where you share Pepper's frustration when he shows up. Then at the end, he says to call it S.H.I.E.L.D., hinting at something. Then Nick Fury shows up, and you're like HOLY SH*T!!!
So, now I really want to know. Did anyone outside Marvel Studios know that this was happening? I remember hearing Iron Man hitting theaters, and I was whatever about it and didn't go. But it never occurred to me that it was a start to something as massive as this. I didn't really pick up on that until The Avengers. I want to know if anyone who went to see this film had any idea what was to come next. If the post-credit sequence wasn't in the movie would you have thought of it as a passable superhero movie? Who would have thought, outside Marvel Studios, that 17 seconds was all it took to change everything? 

But with that aside, I think there were some things left out. Even at 2½ hours long, I feel empty. The actual “Iron Man” maybe only had 30 of those minutes. Much of the movie is spent way too long on building the suit. The relationship Tony has with Pepper is dysfunctional fun for five minutes. The talking over each other is annoying. And Pepper would have been more enjoyable if she didn’t overact. It’s okay for her to freak out for Tony, but she took it too far.

I hope you liked this. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment about what you thought or if you want to recommend a movie for me to review. Thank you for reading. I'll return next week with another movie. See you then.

Released On: May 2, 2008
Rating: PG-13
Stars: Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard, Samuel L. Jackson
Director: Jon Favreau
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93% Certified Fresh
IMDb Score: 7.9/10

Awards
Academy Awards

• Best Visual Effects John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick & Shane Mahan - Nominated
• Best Sound Editing Frank Eulner & Christopher Boyes - Nominated

(Click here to view more awards for "Iron Man")

Videos
How It Should Have Ended - How Iron Man Should Have Ended
CinemaSins - Everything Wrong With Iron Man In 4 Minutes Or Less
Screen Junkies - Honest Trailers - Iron Man