User blog:Hawkeye2701/Review4U: Iron Man (Film)

Cause I was bored (aka, the only reason I ever do anything) I've decided to jump right in with my Iron Man Review now that it's been requested by M(G)P. I swear to god, if it isn't shorter than the Hulk one by miles already (Due to the lack of a lot of shorter scenes) I will edit the crap out of it to ensure more brevity.

All Hail Transistors!
Okay, the movie opens with Tony Stark (Played by the inimitable Robert Downey Jr.) being transported through dusty roads in a military convoy of armoured cars. Making fast friends with the soldiers in his car, when one tries to have his picture taken with Tony, we see the car in front of them explode. The situation quickly devolves with seemingly all three being slaughtered. Trying to run for it, Tony ducks behind a rock only for a missile with a Stark Industries logo to land right next to him, before he can run it explodes, spraying Tony with shrapnel. When he wakes up, its being held by terrorists.

At a award ceremony in Vegas 36 hours earlier, we get Tony's back story as a gifted child and son of wealthy industrialist, Howard Stark. When Tony doesn't show, Obadiah Stane (Played by Jeff Bridges, who I freakin' love!) takes the award on his behalf, while James Rhodes (Played by Terrence Howard, a man so forgettable, they didn't think we'd notice a different actor in the sequel) goes to Look for Tony. After a short argument, Tony goes to leave, where we see a brief scene with the director of the film playing Happy Hogan. After seducing a vanity fair journalist, we jump right to the next day where said journalist is met with Pepper Potts (Played by Gwyneth Paltrow) and the two have a trade of caustic remarks before Pepper goes to find Tony.

Some character parts pass while I edit it out to shorten this summary before Tony arrives seemingly somewhere in the Middle-East. Doing a weapons demo for the new Jericho missile, an impressive piece of hardware powered by “Repulsor” technology. Finishing up, he gets in the truck and we quickly catch up on the opening as Tony awakes on a cot in a dingy cave with a breathing tube up his nose and a car battery hooked to his chest.

He quickly finds that he and the doctor who saved him are being held by terrorists armed with Stark Weapons who want him to build a copy of the Jericho for them. After 'convincing' him to co-operate, the doctor, Yinsen, and him get to know one another whilst working on a miniature Arc reactor in order to replace the wonderful battery powered magnet in his chest.

With that done, they start building the incredibly crude Mark.1 Iron Man armour. However, the terrorists aren't quite as dumb as they appear, and their leader, played by a wonderful man whose name escapes me, but I hope to see in other movies, confronts Tony, demanding results soon, or he's dead. Forced to accelerate their plan, the guards step in, only to get taken out by an improved explosive. With the armour not being ready in time, Yinsen is forced to try and hold off the guards while the Armour's power sequence starts.

Once ready, Tony basically walks out of the caves, beating Terrorists along the way in what is still one of the most badass scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe if you ask me. Finding a near dead Yinsen, he reveals that his family is actually dead and he had no illusions of escaping this lace alive with Tony. Using the crude flight power of his suit, Tony launches himself into the desert, leaving the ruined armour behind before wandering through the sand and eventually being picked up by the U.S. Army.

Heading home, the injured Tony hold a press conference where he states that Stark Industries will no longer be making weapons. During the conference, Pepper is approached by Phil Coulson of the agency with a much too long name. Afterwards, Tony and Obadiah meet in the Arc reactor station of Stark Industries and discuss the company's new direction, Obadiah standing by that they are Iron Mongers (NAME DROP!) while Tony offers that they should look into the Arc reactor tech.

Meanwhile, Pepper watches the news fallout from Tony's decision including one TV presenter who represents the worst thing in this film. I don't know if he's someone in the real world like the Bill O'Reilly cameo in the next film, but he is the most obnoxious, annoying and hated part of this picture for me. Anyway, moving swiftly on, Pepper gets a call from Tony to come help him replace the Arc reactor in his chest. She takes the old one while leaving Tony with the improved model. After a brief meeting with Rhodey, Tony begins working on the Mark.2 armour.

Back in the Middle-East, the terrorists Tony escaped from dig up the remains of the Mark.1, bringing it to their leader, whose head now looks like burnt gammon after Tony's escape.

Back in the lab, Tony is still working when Pepper drops off his coffee and a present for him while telling him Obadiah is waiting for him. Obadiah tells him the board plans to lock Tony out and wants to give them the miniature reactor to sell them on his new direction but Tony refuses before going back to work. Finishing up the Mark.2, he takes it for a test spin, including an attempt to break the record for altitude set by the SR-71 (Full explanation cut for brevity) only to find the armour iced over and failed to function after a certain point.

After nearly killing himself and falling through the roof of his home, he finds that the present left by Pepper is the first arc reactor he had removed, mounted for display with the caption “Proof that Tony Stark has a heart”. Whilst planning the creation of the Mark.3 (The standard for this film) he sees a report on the fire fighters benefit he apparently hosts and decides to go.

After an awkward dance with Pepper, the Vanity Fair journalist from before confronts Tony, referencing the town Yinsen was from as being attacked by the terrorists again, using his weapons. Talking to Obadiah, he asks if they're dealing under the table and Obadiah reveals he's the one that wanted to lock Tony out of the business so they could continue dealing in weapons.

Heading home, he watches the reports on Golmera before dawning his Mark.3 armour to go and do something about it. After some awesome action sequences that show off the ability of the Iron Man vs. modern warfare, Tony has Rhodey cover for him whilst returning home. Back at base, Pepper walks in to find Tony taking off the armour, now ensuring everyone important knows he's Iron Man.

Back with the bad guys, having rebuilt the Mark.1, they present it to their supplier, Obadiah Stane. The exposition reveals that Obadiah hired them to kill Tony originally, but they saw more potential in keeping him alive. Offering to trade Obadiah the armour and designs for a later repayment of the improved variants, Obadiah instead takes them, using a paralysing frequency to disable the terrorist leader and have him and his men eliminated.

In Malibu, Pepper expresses her concern with Tony's warpath, while he asks her to break into Obadiah's computer and find out if he's been dealing under the table with the intention of stopping him. Heading into the office, Pepper finds both his plans for improved armour and the video the terrorists sent him at the beginning of the movie. After a tense exchange of pleasantries with Obadiah, he finds out that Pepper hacked his files as she is leaving the building. Heading out, Pepper comes across Phil Coulson and enlists his help.

Losing more than a little patience, Obadiah confronts his engineers about the power source for the new armour, his team of researchers incapable of recreating the miniaturised reactor Tony created. Going to Tony's house, he uses the same paralysing frequency as before to stun Tony before removing the arc reactor from his chest. Struggling to make his way downstairs after Obadiah leaves, Tony practically crawls across his workshop to retrieve the original reactor from its glass case. Rhodey arrives to help and Tony armours up, Rhodey watching him fly off before looking back at the Mark.2 and remarking “Next time baby.” (Not for you!)

Back at the factory, Pepper, Phil and a handful of agents go in to arrest Obadiah, which goes about as well as you would expect when he's riding around in a four meter tall battle suit. Tony arrives just in time to save Pepper and he and Obadiah take their battle to the streets, disrupting traffic and being in full view of the public, thus throwing deniability out the window. Flying into the air, he exploits the icing problem against Obadiah's suit, making it crash. However, despite the damage, Obadiah is still mostly intact. Getting Pepper to overload the main Arc Reactor in the factor, Tony lures Obadiah above it and has it discharge, killing Obadiah in the process as his armour plunges headlong into the reactor, causing an explosion.

The next day, Tony attends a press conference where he should have stuck to what is the original cover story of Iron Man as Stark's bodyguard, but Tony being Tony decides to cut to the chase and let the world know “I am Iron Man.”

Review
Alright, as before, section by section

Story

Alright, unlike the Hulk movie, this one shows us how Tony became Iron Man, and while that wouldn't work for Bruce, it's a different story here. It's in learning that his company is profiting from war with no accountability for who is getting hurt, that innocent people, not just the “Bad guys” as Tony saw them were the ones suffering at the hands of his weapons that makes him want to become a hero. Of course the story of how Tony began had to be updated, as he was originally captured by a bunch of Racist Chinese Stereotypes, and I don't think Obadiah played a part in the original kidnapping, but these changes do allow us a chance to have the villains here not just be some modern stereotype in place of the old one. Because the wider story isn't just about a rich playboy who realises he was an idiot and beats up the bad guys, it's about the power he has and being responsible with it, as is the age old Spider-Man mantra. Tony Stark was originally designed to be a character people hated, he was made in an era when people were going against the American Industrialist ideal and he was made to be an example of everything that was hated, before turning it around, and he does. He proves that despite who he is, what he has, he has a moral code, that once he realised that innocent people were being hurt because of his work, he wasn't going to do it any more and like I said, the villain here isn't just some stereotype for people to pile their prejudices onto, it's ultimately Obadiah Stane, the man who was dealing under the table, who does use these incredibly harsh methods and means with no care for who it hurts so long as he profits, who is the villain here. That to me, works much better than the original origin, which while it may have flown at the time, was both dated, and kinda cheesy.

Characters

Okay, I already know everybody loves Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, so I'm not really gonna touch on that as even if you disagree with the popular opinion, I don't, so I won't bore you with more of the same. Gwyneth Paltrow I think makes a really good Pepper. Not being very familiar with her comic counterpart until after seeing this film, I find that this sort of mildly neurotic, parent type Pepper works to offset Tony's reckless and nonchalant attitude to things and while certainly an attractive woman under the right circumstances (I've seen some pictures that really aren't flattering to her face) she's again, not one of these super stars that you just look at and go 'yeah right, as if'.

Jeff Bridges is not only an actor I love, but I think he did really well here. I mean for a guy we'd see playing a Hippy Programmer in Tron Legacy a couple of years after this, he makes a very believable money grubbing psycho. The only time I thought his character fell apart was roughly when he planned to kill like six government agents, the other majority share holder in his company and said shareholder's personal assistant in a giant robot suit and somehow get away with it, but I blame that more on the writing.

Terrence Howard, I am sad to say, I did not particularly like, nor do I particularly miss. I don't actually like his replacement either, whose name escapes me, but I personally find too weedy and high pitched, not to mention far too much of being Tony's bitch to be War Machine. I don't know, I guess I'm just stuck on the idea that Rhodey is another of those characters that should be tempering Tony's bad habits, and while Howard certainly seems to be up to scratch in both Rhodey's stronger build and commanding persona, his delivery just leaves much to be desired, while his replacement is more animated and does argue with Tony, it feels more a childish pissing contest as opposed to trying to get Tony not to be an asshole. Anyway, enough of the tangent, all in all, I think War Machine needs work in this entire series.

Style

Okay, the style of this movie has three major tones in my opinion, Playboy, Inventor and Prisoner. The Playboy style is the fast cars, nice suits, exotic locales that come with being Tony Stark. Everything is very stylish and wild and fun, and while more subdued here than it would be in the sequels, I find that this film does a good job of displaying this high class hedonistic world Tony is used to living in, even Stan Lee's typical cameo being as Hugh Heffner in this film. Next, the Inventor, that's Tony's garage, the world beneath the playboy, there's no windows, its all concrete and track lighting, there's often a mess, damage and all sorts cause of the robot arm or repulsors going off and that all suits. If anything, until he blew something up it all felt too clean, but it gets there. Showing more of Tony's intellectual side with his own little world of machinery and experimentation. Finally, the Prisoner. Personally the style I thought was the best in this film, it's dark, it's dank, Tony's having to put everything together with scrap while initially toting this great heavy car battery with him and a dirty magnet with bare connections sticking out of his chest. It's a depressing, harrowing place that puts Tony in the place of the people he's hurt and he feels it, he really does, and that's where we get his turn around, when he's held against his will, surviving by his wits and learning the value of responsibility from Yinsen. Whilst each is quite separate, they're all part of the over all character of Tony Stark, he's still part playboy, part inventor and part prisoner, and it's only when you get all of these parts working together that the whole of Tony Stark comes together and I think that really works for it.

Anyway, I think I've covered most of what I can without running much longer, and coming in two pages under my Incredible Hulk review is already a huge achievement for me, so on behalf of M(G)P, this is Hawkeye2701 and I am Iron Ham.