Ironman
//Ironman
Date Released: May 02, 2008
Date Seen: May 02, 2008
So, I’m a huge comic book movie type of guy, even though I never really was much into comic books. It’s just now, through these movies, that I’m starting to get a good overview of who these wonderful heroes and their stories are.
I guess this is about as much as an unbiased review of the film that you’re going to get from a non-Iron man fan.
To date, I’ve thought there has been a few good comic book movies that I’ve liked. I enjoyed Xmen and Xmen 2, as well as Spiderman and I didn’t think Fantastic Four was really all that bad. The Hulk, Superman: Returns, and a few sequels were not so great.
I’ll just say this: out of all of the comic book movies that I’ve seen, Ironman definitely takes the cake.
The basic premise of Ironman is that the famed Billionaire-Playboy type Tony Stark, who manufactures weapons among other things,–sees the errors of his ways after a life threatening attack, and builds a suit/life support system to combat the evil that he’s created.
Jon Favreau, the director, certainly had some shoes to fill. There was a lot of hype behind this movie, especially since it’s Marvel’s first self-financed film, meaning there wasn’t going to be any reason to screw around with the details. All in all, I think he did admirably.
His first great choice was to cast Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. He just exudes and adds wonderful comedy and brilliance to the character. This was the role he was born to play, and the talented Downey Jr. nails it on the head.
The second choice Favreau went for is not to mess with the damn story too much. It really irks me when someone takes a perfectly good story and twists and molds it to make it completely unlike what it originally was. That being said, there’s been a few minor changes that only serve to help the story, not completely butcher it. Favreau decided to update the time era from Vietnam to the modern setting of Afghanistan, so movie watchers would be able to relate to it better. Other then that, very other few things were changed.
I also respect his decision to keep the film grounded in reality. Instead of using a well known villain such as the Mandarin, a more fantasy based villain, Favreau opted for a more lesser known villain called the Iron Monger, or Obidiah Stone. Obidiah Stone is played very well by a bald and bearded Jeff Bridges.
I think the director did fantastic at grounding the movie in reality: You could almost just imagine that perhaps someone could build a suit similar to Ironman’s–perhaps it’s already even out there!
Speaking of Jeff Bridges, the supporting cast in Iron Man was something that surprised me. You had Terrence Howard playing James Rhodes, Tony Stark’s best friend, who seemed to fit the role quite well. You could almost feel the two men had been friends for years. Gwentyth Paltrow almost came out of no where as well, filling the role of Pepper Potts with a wonderful grace.
All in all the supporting cast was wonderful, and reminded me of how well Batman Begins did with their supporting cast, in regards to how everything felt real, not fake.
Some movies have some CGI thrown in to power their movies, making films pull off even bigger and greater things.
Iron man is no different, employing Industrial Light and Magic, as well as Stan Winston to create some of the most realistic CGI that I’ve ever seen. Honestly, I can’t even tell if the suit that Ironman uses is real or not. WETA ( a rival studio) is going to have some trouble keeping up at this rate.
There’s really nothing more to say about this movie other then that I loved the story, loved the actors, and felt for an instant that this wasn’t just another comic book movie, that there was something that genuinely set it apart from the others. Here’s to hoping that the impending sequel can live up to its predecessor, and that Marvel keeps making movies just as good as this.
Rating:
9.5/10
