Iron Man (2008)

Directed by Jon Favreau (Elf, Cowboys & Aliens)

Written by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum, & Matt Holloway (so basically just a room full of dudes at Marvel Studios)

How can one begin to estimate the movie that launched a thousand (or at least 20) sequels? It’s a difficult proposition to say the least. It’s surprising how unassuming and simple this first movie in the Marvel universe is. Despite that simplicity, however, there’s something alchemical about what they managed to do here. On watching it, the movie is clearly more than the sum of its parts. It has flaws, to be sure, but it still amazes me how confidently they began this whole experiment. It’s an origin story that doesn’t belabor the origin (confining it to the first third of the movie or so), and it’s a narrative that’s satisfied with simply being a good story. It has no larger mythology in which to place itself, no obligations to remind the viewers of this or that McGuffin. It simply tells an engaging, character-driven story, and that’s not something that Marvel does as often as they used to, for better or worse.

For the uninitiated, the movie follows Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), an irresponsible, billionaire narcissist as he grows in two major ways. First, he realizes that the company his father built and that he nominally runs has become an agent of evil in the world, building weapons that cause untold collateral damage to innocents. Second, he uses his vast intellect to repurpose those very weapons into tools to be an agent of good. He is aided in his mission by probably the only two people in the world he might actually be able to call friends, his personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and an old buddy named Rhodey (Terrence Howard, for now) who works for the U.S. Air Force. Jeff Bridges plays Obadiah Stane, the man who ran the company after Tony’s father’s death and desperately wants to hold on to that power. All of them do an excellent job. They really stacked the cast in this first film, and I think that’s a large part of what makes it work so well. Robert Downey, Jr.’s work as Tony Stark is already pretty much the stuff of legend, so little needs to be said about it except that he’s as good from moment one as you remember him being. The man’s charisma could power a small metropolis, and he is largely responsible for defining the roguish scoundrel archetype that all too many Marvel heroes are going to fall into (and fall short of) further down the line. Paltrow is excellent as the buttoned-down foil to Tony’s eccentricities, and Bridges goes very very admirably big when he finally gets to let loose as the film’s villain.

I find it nearly impossible to find fault with anything in the first forty minutes of this film. It’s the ultimate distillation of the superhero origin, cut of all fat and presented in an effective and emotionally resonant way. Tony’s hubris is his own downfall, he’s given another chance, he decides to make something of his life. They do an excellent job of showing you just what a despicable human being he is before his big change, and they give his transformation just enough time that you believe it. He gets a great Jean Valjean “I have bought your soul for God” moment, and boom. Origin done. The plot after that point is a little more hit-and-miss, though. There are some pacing issues, and some scenes that are flat-out boring. The fight against the U.S. jets is uninteresting. We know he’s not going to kill American citizens, and we know they’re not going to kill him. It’s a cheap way to get Rhodey into the movie, and there would have been better (and less time-consuming) ways to do so. The movie is also way too in love with the suit itself, and although I loved those almost fetishistic 30-second shots of it upon first viewing, this time I was mostly bored. Setting up the terrorist leader as the potential villain for the film works wonderfully, though. The subversion of the “vaguely Middle Eastern guy as big bad” trope is fun and was incredibly surprising at the time. The real villain, though, does way too much monologuing, and also leaves the hero to die in that foolish Bond-villain way, which is frustrating. In addition, the final fight is just two 2008-era hunks of CGI metal using their Batman voices and bouncing off each other. Unfortunately, Marvel rarely pulls off an actually exciting final fight from an action perspective. They do give Pepper actual plot-significant action throughout, though, so that puts them above most movies of this type.

Honestly, the longer the movie goes on, the more of a mixed bag it is, but it has a rock solid foundation on which it is building. The actors are all top notch, the origin story on which all the rest of this is based will be burned into my head for the rest of my life, and the last line of the movie is so pitch perfect that it’s still one of the best moments in the entire MCU. Despite the missteps, this is still absolutely worth watching, and not just because of what came after. It will one day be considered one of “the” classic works in this rapidly growing genre, the Stagecoach of superhero movies.

Overall:

Stray Thoughts:

• I wonder how hard Terrence Howard is kicking himself right about now?
• I will always love RDJ as “jacked blacksmith.” *blushing emoji*
• It is astonishing how already left-leaning these movies were. The villain in this movie is basically a democratic bugbear of the era come to life. Iron Man VS. The Military Industrial Complex!
• I’m very nerd-sad that they got rid of Jarvis the character and replaced him with a computer.
• I’m very nerd-happy that they did an homage to the original Iron Man suit in the cave.
• The physical comedy in this movie is amazing.
• “You’re going to kill yourself, Tony, and I won’t be a part of it.” -Pepper Potts. This may end up being a haunting line in a couple of weeks. I guess we’ll see!
• Post-Credits Scene: Stone-cold classic. Exhilarating and nerdy without over-committing.
• Stan Lee Cameo: Absolutely hilarious, it’ll be a while before they top this one.