Sorry I'm kinda late with this one.
I'm pretty sure my friend ezmo11 said it best:
And heeere is my official Iron Man movie post. Like I did for Spider-man 3 except with more alcohol.
So, Iron Man's a pretty not-well known character. Let's recap: Tony Stark, billionaire industrialist playboy, got himself captured in Vietnam (later retconned to Afghanistan) and built himself a giant-ass robot suit that helped keep his heart from giving out. Later, Tony got his heart condition fixed, but gained a new character flaw: alcoholism!
Then he got better, had a relapse, became a homeless vagrant, joined AA, became paralyzed while out of his suit, was turned evil by Kang alternate future Kang, was replaced by a teenage version of himself from another dimension, and was then recreated by the psychic spawn of Mr. Fantastic. In other words: COMICS, YOU LOSE.
Recently Tony, still sober and heart-condition free, found himself in need of another character flaw. So he decided to beat up his friends for the government and make an evil robot clone of his dead friend. Blah blah blah, Captain America died, Tony Stark got himself promoted, and he now makes guest appearances in every Marvel comic currently being published. He spends most of his time either being a total douchebag or trying (unsuccessfully) to convince me he isn't totally in love with Steve Rogers. ANNNGST.
This concludes our tour of TONY STARK, now on to the feature presentation.
Anyway, I'm going to use stick figures because I'm not going to bother illegally downloading this movie for screencaps. SO. The opening shot is of a jeep in the desert-- then we see inside of the jeep. Behold!
Then we get to see Tony Stark as he's talking to soldiers and describing his sexual conquests. But oh no! An explosion! Right at the very beginning! What will happen now? Cut to: 48 hours earlier!
Okay, not really, but everytime someone pulls that intro-cliffhanger to however many hours earlier schtick I'm reminded of techno music, wigs, and Rambaldi. -- am I right or am I right?
Next we get a nice scene of Tony's accomplishment as he's awarded some award for being an engineering super-genius, but he's not there! He's gambling with scantily clad women! Let the following scenes introduce you to our cast of characters.
OUR HERO, Tony Stark, a man of great means, intelligence, and douchebaggery. His super power is being able to sleep with every woman. His private jet has a retractable stripper-pole built in, because he's classy like that.
James Rhodes, Rhodey, who is Stark's friend for some reason and somewhat involved in, like, the Air Force or something.
Pepper, Tony's gal Friday and the one attractive woman he does not sleep with after knowing for fifteen minutes. Thus, she is our film's love interest.
Obadiah Stane, a family friend and major player at Stark Industries. Don't be fooled by the bald head and ominous facial hair-- he's totally completely not evil. Really.
Anyway, so Tony goes clubbing, sleeps with a random reporter girl, gets on a plane, drinks a lot, watches his flight attendants strip and then makes a big explosion for the U.S. Military. On his way back to the plane, his jeep gets exploded, and then he is kidnapped by terrorists. Oh no! Also, there's some shrapnel stuck in his heart. The logical solution? An electro-magnet, powered by a car battery! This is completely practical and violates no health codes!!
Also in terrorist is Yensin, the one who jerry-rigged Tony's heart. The terrorists are holding Tony captive until he can build them a super-missile, but it's pretty clear they're just going to kill him afterword. But through some of Yensin's pep-talking, Tony gets a brilliant idea. Instead of a missile, he'll build some awesome robot armor! That will show them! That will show them all!!
Together, Tony and Yensin construct their robot armor under they watchful but stupid eyes of the terrorists. Then the chief terrorist comes to visit, stroking a large, conspicuous ring. He uses his powers of slight bureaucratic seniority to deduce that something's rotten in the state of Denmark. He questions Tony and Yensin about the arrival of his missile, and gives them one day to complete it.
Of course, this is just exactly enough time for them to finish making the robot suit, and so the terrorists are pretty thoroughly screwed. But alas! There is always room for loss:
Tony escapes, but upon his return to Malibu finds himself incomplete. He has a crisis of conscious. He makes weapons! But weapons kill people! And killing people is bad!
Of course, he spends the rest of the movie mostly in his basement, making new and progressively more awesome robot armor with fancy missiles attached. Damn the moral complexities, full speed ahead!!
After a few neat test-flights and gratuitous robot comedy, Tony decides to attend a charity ball. The problem is, since he's been in the basement all the time, and his last press conference was somewhat problematic, people think he's gone crazy! Also, Stane's informed him that the board has some troubles with his recent direction. The solution: dancing!! He finds Pepper in a gorgeous dress, and they have a moment of almost-kissing. But then he leaves her to go get a drink. Then Stane reveals himself-- it was he who filed the complaint against Tony! He's trying to take Stark industries away from him. Dun dun DUUUN.
Yes, he also has really pimp pyjamas. But it's revealed that he paid the terrorists to kidnap Tony! Curse his sudden yet inevitable betrayal!! He's figured out Tony's working on a giant suit of armor, and hires the other engineers at Stark Industries to build him a larger and more menacing suit. The problem is they can't figure out the power source they need to make the thing go. Obadiah curses. "Tony Stark made this with a bunch of scraps in a cave!!" The random lackey replies, "I'm not Tony STAAAAAARK!!"
Anyway, Obadiah takes matters into is own hands and steals the neat-o reactor Tony's got powering his heart. He then uses it to power his evil Iron Man suit. Tony scrambles for his back-up reactor and then meets Obadiah in single combat, in true bet-em-up finale style. At this point, you can do one of two things: realize that it makes really little sense for a sixty-year-old business man to get into a giant robot suit and start spouting super-villain clichés and be lame, or you can realize that giant robot battles are awesome and just shut up and enjoy the film.
Of course, good wins, and at the end Tony is called to a press conference where he tries to explain what was up with these giant suits of armor running around. "Oh yeah, that was totally my new bodyguard." One reporter gives the impression that she doesn't buy his crap, and Tony wavers. "Okay, yeah. I am Iron Man." This marks a bold new direction for facial hair, in a world where goatees are almost always a sign of evil.
After the credits roll, a scene plays. Samuel L. Jackson-- I mean, Nick Fury!!-- shows up at Stark's techno-bungalow and introduces himself. "You're not the only superhero," he says. "Have you heard about the Avengers Initiative?"
Cue franchise.
P.S. Guys, Nick Fury is one million flavors of manliness and chest-muscles, he is actually more badass than Samuel L. Jackson. I direct you to this image as proof, c/o Jim Steranko.
To be brief: I really liked this movie. The best part were the short, unnecessary scenes between the actors-- Tony and Rhodes on the phone, that part with Pepper and the mucus-filled hole of doom, Obadiah and his evil pizza slices. The movie was in general really well-acted, and I'm pretty sure Robert Downey Jr. was meant to be the Iron Man of our universe. Just, Dr. Doom intervened or something and now he's just an actor with substance abuse problems.
What's interesting about this movie is that Iron Man's the most flawed of the flawed heroes, but for some reason his movie is the least angsty. There's no crushing guilt, no tortured romance. As a result it's a super hero movie that's actually really funny, and not in that uncomfortable Fantastic Four 2 sort of way. On the scale of recent movies of the genre, I'd put it above Spider-man but below Spider-man 2-- it's about on the level of Batman Begins, but though they feature similar heroes, the movies try to do two very different things.
And heeere is my official Iron Man movie post. Like I did for Spider-man 3 except with more alcohol.
So, Iron Man's a pretty not-well known character. Let's recap: Tony Stark, billionaire industrialist playboy, got himself captured in Vietnam (later retconned to Afghanistan) and built himself a giant-ass robot suit that helped keep his heart from giving out. Later, Tony got his heart condition fixed, but gained a new character flaw: alcoholism!
Then he got better, had a relapse, became a homeless vagrant, joined AA, became paralyzed while out of his suit, was turned evil by Kang alternate future Kang, was replaced by a teenage version of himself from another dimension, and was then recreated by the psychic spawn of Mr. Fantastic. In other words: COMICS, YOU LOSE.
Recently Tony, still sober and heart-condition free, found himself in need of another character flaw. So he decided to beat up his friends for the government and make an evil robot clone of his dead friend. Blah blah blah, Captain America died, Tony Stark got himself promoted, and he now makes guest appearances in every Marvel comic currently being published. He spends most of his time either being a total douchebag or trying (unsuccessfully) to convince me he isn't totally in love with Steve Rogers. ANNNGST.
This concludes our tour of TONY STARK, now on to the feature presentation.
Anyway, I'm going to use stick figures because I'm not going to bother illegally downloading this movie for screencaps. SO. The opening shot is of a jeep in the desert-- then we see inside of the jeep. Behold!
Then we get to see Tony Stark as he's talking to soldiers and describing his sexual conquests. But oh no! An explosion! Right at the very beginning! What will happen now? Cut to: 48 hours earlier!
Okay, not really, but everytime someone pulls that intro-cliffhanger to however many hours earlier schtick I'm reminded of techno music, wigs, and Rambaldi. -- am I right or am I right?
Next we get a nice scene of Tony's accomplishment as he's awarded some award for being an engineering super-genius, but he's not there! He's gambling with scantily clad women! Let the following scenes introduce you to our cast of characters.
OUR HERO, Tony Stark, a man of great means, intelligence, and douchebaggery. His super power is being able to sleep with every woman. His private jet has a retractable stripper-pole built in, because he's classy like that.
James Rhodes, Rhodey, who is Stark's friend for some reason and somewhat involved in, like, the Air Force or something.
Pepper, Tony's gal Friday and the one attractive woman he does not sleep with after knowing for fifteen minutes. Thus, she is our film's love interest.
Obadiah Stane, a family friend and major player at Stark Industries. Don't be fooled by the bald head and ominous facial hair-- he's totally completely not evil. Really.
Anyway, so Tony goes clubbing, sleeps with a random reporter girl, gets on a plane, drinks a lot, watches his flight attendants strip and then makes a big explosion for the U.S. Military. On his way back to the plane, his jeep gets exploded, and then he is kidnapped by terrorists. Oh no! Also, there's some shrapnel stuck in his heart. The logical solution? An electro-magnet, powered by a car battery! This is completely practical and violates no health codes!!
Also in terrorist is Yensin, the one who jerry-rigged Tony's heart. The terrorists are holding Tony captive until he can build them a super-missile, but it's pretty clear they're just going to kill him afterword. But through some of Yensin's pep-talking, Tony gets a brilliant idea. Instead of a missile, he'll build some awesome robot armor! That will show them! That will show them all!!
Together, Tony and Yensin construct their robot armor under they watchful but stupid eyes of the terrorists. Then the chief terrorist comes to visit, stroking a large, conspicuous ring. He uses his powers of slight bureaucratic seniority to deduce that something's rotten in the state of Denmark. He questions Tony and Yensin about the arrival of his missile, and gives them one day to complete it.
Of course, this is just exactly enough time for them to finish making the robot suit, and so the terrorists are pretty thoroughly screwed. But alas! There is always room for loss:
Tony escapes, but upon his return to Malibu finds himself incomplete. He has a crisis of conscious. He makes weapons! But weapons kill people! And killing people is bad!
Of course, he spends the rest of the movie mostly in his basement, making new and progressively more awesome robot armor with fancy missiles attached. Damn the moral complexities, full speed ahead!!
After a few neat test-flights and gratuitous robot comedy, Tony decides to attend a charity ball. The problem is, since he's been in the basement all the time, and his last press conference was somewhat problematic, people think he's gone crazy! Also, Stane's informed him that the board has some troubles with his recent direction. The solution: dancing!! He finds Pepper in a gorgeous dress, and they have a moment of almost-kissing. But then he leaves her to go get a drink. Then Stane reveals himself-- it was he who filed the complaint against Tony! He's trying to take Stark industries away from him. Dun dun DUUUN.
Yes, he also has really pimp pyjamas. But it's revealed that he paid the terrorists to kidnap Tony! Curse his sudden yet inevitable betrayal!! He's figured out Tony's working on a giant suit of armor, and hires the other engineers at Stark Industries to build him a larger and more menacing suit. The problem is they can't figure out the power source they need to make the thing go. Obadiah curses. "Tony Stark made this with a bunch of scraps in a cave!!" The random lackey replies, "I'm not Tony STAAAAAARK!!"
Anyway, Obadiah takes matters into is own hands and steals the neat-o reactor Tony's got powering his heart. He then uses it to power his evil Iron Man suit. Tony scrambles for his back-up reactor and then meets Obadiah in single combat, in true bet-em-up finale style. At this point, you can do one of two things: realize that it makes really little sense for a sixty-year-old business man to get into a giant robot suit and start spouting super-villain clichés and be lame, or you can realize that giant robot battles are awesome and just shut up and enjoy the film.
Of course, good wins, and at the end Tony is called to a press conference where he tries to explain what was up with these giant suits of armor running around. "Oh yeah, that was totally my new bodyguard." One reporter gives the impression that she doesn't buy his crap, and Tony wavers. "Okay, yeah. I am Iron Man." This marks a bold new direction for facial hair, in a world where goatees are almost always a sign of evil.
After the credits roll, a scene plays. Samuel L. Jackson-- I mean, Nick Fury!!-- shows up at Stark's techno-bungalow and introduces himself. "You're not the only superhero," he says. "Have you heard about the Avengers Initiative?"
Cue franchise.
P.S. Guys, Nick Fury is one million flavors of manliness and chest-muscles, he is actually more badass than Samuel L. Jackson. I direct you to this image as proof, c/o Jim Steranko.
To be brief: I really liked this movie. The best part were the short, unnecessary scenes between the actors-- Tony and Rhodes on the phone, that part with Pepper and the mucus-filled hole of doom, Obadiah and his evil pizza slices. The movie was in general really well-acted, and I'm pretty sure Robert Downey Jr. was meant to be the Iron Man of our universe. Just, Dr. Doom intervened or something and now he's just an actor with substance abuse problems.
What's interesting about this movie is that Iron Man's the most flawed of the flawed heroes, but for some reason his movie is the least angsty. There's no crushing guilt, no tortured romance. As a result it's a super hero movie that's actually really funny, and not in that uncomfortable Fantastic Four 2 sort of way. On the scale of recent movies of the genre, I'd put it above Spider-man but below Spider-man 2-- it's about on the level of Batman Begins, but though they feature similar heroes, the movies try to do two very different things.