Right time for yet another post and this one is a movie and it will be on Iron Man, the first one in the trilogy of films starring Robert Downey Jr in the title role. So let's give this one a lookseee.....
OK so the story begins with its main character Tony Stark (Downey Jr) a technical genius and billionaire playboy who is on a trip to Aghanistan to promote a new missile from the production of his business, Stark industries, which he inherited from his father. Tony however is ambushed and wounded by one of his own missiles and taken captive by a terrorist group. During his captivity, Tony is saved by one of the other captives, Yinsen (Shaun Toub) who grafts an electromagnet to Tony's chest in order to keep the shards of the missile from entering his heart. The leader of the terrorist group, Raza (Farin Tahir) wants Tony to build him a missile and in exchange he will grant his freedom, evne though Tony knows that Raza won't keep his word. However Tony and Yinsen set about to build an arc reactor instead, which will react with his electromagnet and also a suit of armour so Tony can use to ensure his escape. Yinsen sacrifices himself to allow Tony to power up the suit and get it ready and Tony himself manages to battle his way out of the camp even though he ultimaltey destroys the suit taking fire and landing heavily in the desert sand. Tony however is soon rescued by his good friend and military liaison Lt Rhodes (Terrence Howard) and taken back home.
Back at home in the States, Tony announces publicly that Stark industries will no longer make weapons, deeply affected by his experience in Afghanistan. However Tony's father's old business partner and company manager, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) warns Tony that such a move could destroy the business. Tony instead however decides to build another armour suit and refines it and also builds a more powerful arc reactor for his chest and gives the original one to his personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow) who places it in a glass showcase. Tony while he builds his suit, test runs it although he come across a few snags to iron out (no pun intended!) and keeps the details of it private from Obadiah. Tony later attends a charity event where he learns from a reporter, Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb) that the missiles he promoted over in Afghanistan are now being used to attack Yinsen's village. Tony also discovers that Obadiah intends to take over as the head of the company from him, which angers Tony who dons his armour suit and flies over to Afghanistan and stops the terrorists and saves the village. On his return, Tony is attacked by two fighter jets and he is forced to reveal his identity in a phone call with Rhodes, which calls off the attack, not before Tony saves one of the pilot's releasing his parachute launch in mid-air. Not long after Obadiah pays a visit to Raza and his men and he uses a sonic device to subdue him and he has Raza and his men killed. Obadiah then has the remains of Tony's suit in the desert taken back home where he intends to build his own suit but his scientists cannot fathom how to do it without an arc reactor, so Obadiah ambushes Tony at his home and takes his own reactor, also revealing that he was the one that put out the hit on Tony initially at the start of the film. And from here Tony must try and recover and find a way to stop Obadiah from taking over Stark industries and using his new suit for his own power hungry purposes....
There is not much doubt that the first film here, Iron Man, was the best in the series and it features a good mix of fun, drama and suspense throughout. And it was great to see another Marvel comic character being given a credible introduction to the big screen especially after the disappointment of other character's such as Daredevil and also the Spiderman films had gone stale aswell with the poor reception of the mediocre Spiderman 3. Although Tony Stark of course is another one of the superheroes who has no actual super powers but instead here he relies on his brilliant scientific intellect in creating his own body armour suit which he uses for good purposes.
Moving onto the performances things are very good starting with Robert Downey Jr, who is excellent in the main role as Tony Stark/Iron Man and he plays the part with his usual mix of charisma, sarcastic humour but also shows Tony to be a moral man aswell, especially after his encounter in Afghanistan which leaves him a changed man. Robert has some good fun moments in the film such as in the scene where Tony tests out his iron man suit and takes it for a test flight, but he can't quite get the landing right and says "Kill the power" and ends up falling right through the roof of his condo and crash lands into his workshop below! Then there is the scene where Tony makes his first proper flight in the his new Iron Man suit and flies to save the village in Afghanistan and he defeats some terrorists and leaves one alive for the town villagers and he says to them "He's all yours!" and flies off. Then there is the next scene where Tony is attacked by the two fighter jets and he calls up Rhodes through his suit and he says to Rhodes "Hey its me! What you asked about? Its me!" and Rhodes doesn't follow him and Tony continues "Its not a piece of equipment. Its a suit! I'm in it! Its ME!". Another good scene is where Tony get's Pepper to remove his old arc reactor by releasing a tube connected deep inside his chest and Pepper panics by saying "I don't think I'm qualified to do that" and Tony says "No you are the most capable, trustworthy, reliable person I've ever met. You'll do great. Is it too much to ask? Cos I really need your help here!". And lastly there is the scene near the end where Tony has his showdown with Obadiah as the two of the fight it out in their armour suits. And Tony in an effort to stop Obadiah following him flies as high as he can into the sky to ensure Obadiah's suit begins to freeze due to the altitude and as Obadiah follows and attacks him in the air Tony says to him "How'd you solve the icing problem??" and Obadiah says "The icing problem" as his suit freezes up and he says "Might want to look into it!" and clunks Obadiah's suit on the head and it falls! And last of there is the last scene to give it away (SPOILER SORRY!) as Tony addresses a press conference back home he has been given some cards to read from to conceal the truth but instead he looks at the press and says "The truth is..... I am Iron Man!" and the press go nuts and the credits roll.
Jeff Bridges is also excellent in his role as the villainous Obadiah Stane, Tony's business partner who eventually betrays him and steals Tony's reactor to power his own suit. Bridges also has some good scenes such as the scene where we learn that Stane is the villain as he uses his sonic device to subdue the terrorist leader Raza and he speaks to him saying "Don't worry it'll only last fifteen minutes. That's the least of your problems". Then there is the scene where Obidiah berates one of his scientists for not being able to replicate the arc reactor Tony built and he yells at the man "TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!". And in the showdown scene between Tony and Obadiah, Obi says to Tony during their fight "I never really had a taste for this kind of thing, but I must admit I'm deeply enjoying the suit!". And during the fight Tony rips out several wires from Obadiah's suit as he jumps on his back and Obi yells at him "You ripped out my targetting system!" as he tries to shoot him with his suit's guns and he says "Hold still ya little prick!".
Gwenyth Paltrow is also very good in her role as Pepper Potts, Tony's trustworthy assistant and also hinted at love interest, or at least its an interest that develops in the sequels but not so much here. Gwenyth also has some good moments in the film as she is given some of the film's best lines such as in the scene where Pepper meets with one of Tony's flings the next morning, the reporter Christina who says to her "After all these years, he still has you doing the dry cleaning" and Pepper replies "I do anything and everything Mr Stark requires. Including occassionally taking out the trash. Will that be all???". And then there is the scene where Tony dances with Pepper at a charity event and he sarcastically says to her "I could fire you if took the edge off" as they flirt and Pepper says "I don't think you could tie your shoes without me" and Tony says "I'd make it a week" and she says "A week really? What's your social security number??" and Tony starts "Five..." and Pepper says "Five... you're missing just a couple of digits!". And last of all Terrence Howard is good in his part as Tony's friend, Lt Rhodes who helps him later on in the film and also keeps Tony's secret under wraps and Paul Bethany makes an off-screen appearance as the voice of Tony's AI computer system, J.A.R.V.I.S and he provides some amusmement as well. And last last of all Samuel L Jackson who turns up too as Nick Fury, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D in a last scene camero as he tells Tony Stark "You're not the only superhero out there. I would like to talk to you about the Avenger initiative."
As for the director, John Favreau does a fine job with the film and after seeing him play whiny roles in films such as Swingers, it was initially surprising to see him make such an effective transition to a directorial role and he handles the film's tone and action perfectly. Favreau also allowed room for the actors to improvise their lines and he gives the film a fairly light hearted feel but also provides serious moments as well to give the right balance between the fun and the drama. The film also features a pretty decent music score by Ramin Djawadi which suits the film well enough although its not a great one it doesn't really need to be as long as it doesn't take away from the film, which it doesn't.
As for flaws..... well Iron Man has only one or two small niggles and one thing that springs to mind is the scenes when Tony is held captive by the terrorists that they are a bit sluggish and they tend to drag down the pacing of the film somewhat and its when Tony get's back home the film starts to really pick up. You could also perhaps argue its depiction of terrorists is pretty much the standard stereotype that you would find in any other Hollywood and on that basis the film doesn't offer anything much new either. Another thing that would maybe have been nice is the inclusion of another superhero or indeed super villain as well rather than just your typical foreign terrorists to deal with and its only at the end of the film where its hinted that Tony will eventually become part of the Avengers. Obadiah also doesn't really make for the best of villains either, even though Jeff Bridges is very good in his part, in the end he's just a two-timing scumbag who wanted to get one over Tony so he could take over the company and continue to make nuclear arms to get richer but that's about it and there is nothing much beyond that. You could also argue that Tony's character is pretty sexist and he does treat women somewhat like objects early on in the film as he goes from one night stand to another, but of course he does begin to fall slowly for Pepper as the film progresses and he becomes a better more moral person. But these are fairly small niggles and nothing too major.
So that's it for my look at Iron Man which is a very enjoyable film and the best out of the three films made as the sequels couldn't live quite live up to the standard of this one.
And that's it for now and I'll be back with another review soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment