Iron Man (2008) Review

Time: 126 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Terrence Howard as Lt. Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes
Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane
Shaun Toub as Yinsen
Gwyneth Paltrow as Virginia “Pepper” Potts
Director: Jon Favreau

A billionaire industrialist and genius inventor, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), is conducting weapons tests overseas, but terrorists kidnap him to force him to build a devastating weapon. Instead, he builds an armoured suit and upends his captors. Returning to America, Stark refines the suit and uses it to combat crime and terrorism.

Iron Man was in development for a while and a lot of people didn’t know what to expect. It was based on a lesser known comic book character and starred Robert Downey Jr in the lead role, who was in the middle of a comeback after his personal problems. This was the movie that started off the Marvel Cinematic Universe and relaunched Robert Downey Jr’s career. Iron Man is definitely in the top 5 best Marvel movies for me, it had great action, excellent acting and quite an impressive story.

One of the risks that this movie took is that it wasn’t based on a well-known superhero like Batman, Superman, Spiderman or Wolverine. Iron Man was an unknown character, or was at least an unknown character for the casual superhero film fan at the time. This film is an origin story for Iron Man and it was really set up well, it did actually give real reasons for Tony Stark to become Iron Man. Even though we know it is a movie, it made all this technology feel like all this is possible in some point in the future, which is something rare to see in a superhero film. The only weak point was the last act. I still enjoyed it and it isn’t bad by any means but it wasn’t as strong as the last two acts. For example when it came to that final act, Jeff Bridges turns from a decent villain to an over the top cliché villain, which was a little disappointing, seeing as how he was set up well. This movie actually knew that it was going to eventually lead to The Avengers, as evident by the post credit scene, which to this date is one of the best post credit scenes in a movie.

Robert Downey Jr is Iron Man, he absolutely owns this role. He’s a lot of fun to watch but he also does convey the inner feelings of Tony Stark. Without him this movie would still be fine but it would not be as great as it is, he really made this movie. I also liked Gwyneth Paltrow in this movie, she and Downey Jr played off really well off each other and have good chemistry with each other. A lot of people thought that Terrence Howard was miscast and although he does a fine job, it doesn’t feel like he’s the best person suited to it, especially when compared to the recasting with Don Cheadle. I thought that Jeff Bridges made for a decent villain, even though he wasn’t fully developed he is a lot better than most of the villains in the MCU.

The action scenes looked great, all of the action in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies look great. The CGI also really worked for the film, and the best part is that it looked like Iron Man was really there doing all these things and it doesn’t once look fake. The action also had a lot of grit to it and really helped it look like it could actually happen in the future.

Iron Man is one of the best films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and that’s impressive considering that it was the film that started everything off for The Avengers. The story, the action and the acting especially from its main lead makes it truly a great movie. Its last act may not be very strong but the movie is worth watching for its first two acts alone. It’s worth noting that 2008 was also the year that The Dark Knight was released, that year established that great comic book movies were no longer the exception, they were now the norm.

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