Iron Man (contains spoilers!)

[Drake 53]

Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave!

With a box of scraps!

IRON MAN MOVIE REVIEW

By Drake

Let me start off this review by saying that I am by no means an "expert" on Iron Man. Due to the strong desire not to waste money on things that I'll read through in 5 minutes and never look at again, I failed to read any of the Iron Man comics in the past. That said, I have, however, watched plenty of cartoons involving or starring the multi-millionaire in the metal suit so I feel that I have some background with this particular character.

And now to the actual review...

Ever since I first heard about the creation of an Iron Man movie, I was filled with both excitement and a sense of dread. The excitement came from my love of the Iron Man character. It began years and years ago, during a season of the Spiderman cartoon, when Spidey, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Iron Man and War Machine somehow found themselves in another reality or on a distant planet...or something equally bad. I remember little of the specifics of those episodes...but I do remember how badass Iron Man was. So when I heard about a new live action Iron Man movie, I was thrilled, to say the least. However, the dread crept in. Marvel has made a habit of making their movies either hit or miss. I did not want Iron Man to fall in with the likes of Daredevil or the first Hulk movie. My fears were compounded later when I read some of the people they had in mind to play Tony Stark. Justin Timberlake!? No thank you. Thankfully, Marvel went with Mr. Robery Downey Jr. As soon as I saw him in the trailers, and as soon as I heard his voice, I knew that he was Tony Stark. I don't think anyone could have pulled that role off better than him. Kudos to the casting department for that one. You probably saved the movie for me.

Continuing on with the cast, I would have to say that I'm pleased with the actors they chose for the various roles. I was wary about Gwyneth Paltrow playing Virginia "Pepper" Potts but eventually she grew on me. I was probably just wary since she named her kid 'Apple'. Moving on. The guys they got for Obadiah Stane and Rhodey were very good choices as well.

The beginning of the movie was very well done. I liked how the Tony Stark character was introduced. In the opening scene, in the army Hummer (or "Funvee"), Tony was introduced as the very laid back, sarcastic, rich jackass that he is. It wasn't a complete introduction but it helped establish that he was important and that what happened next would have a big impact on his character. So the caravan gets attacked, the soldiers get shot and Tony comes face-to-face with a grim reality. One in which his company, Stark Enterprises, is selling their weapons not only to the US armed forces but to the terrorists as well.

BOOM.

We jump back in time a day for Tony's full introduction. We meet Rhodey and Obadiah right off the bat and get a first-look at their characters. Tony is revealed to be a stereotypical billionaire who has too much money to care about anything. He does whatever he wants and gets away with it. Pepper seems to be the only one who can ever get him to do anything.

This all changes as we catch back up to the first scene and Tony finds himself in a cave undergoing a painful surgery. He eventually wakes up with an electromagnet stuck in his chest and a car battery attached to it.

Now we meet Tony's saviour, Yinsen. This kind surgeon acts as a new-found conscience throughout the whole of Tony's captivity at the hands of the Ten Rings. He teaches Tony the importance of family and friendship. Yensin also acts as a turning point for Tony's journey to change himself. At this time, we also meet the obvious bad guy, Raza, "leader" of the Ten Rings (I threw up quotation marks since he isn't in Iron Man canon). He wants Tony to build him a powerful missile from the stockpile of Stark Industry weapons he already owns.

Tony and Yinsen begin constructing a method of escape. First off, Tony replaces his electromagnet and car battery with a sleek new mini-Arc reactor to power his heart. Next, they build a mechanical suit, later known as the "Mark I" armour. Yensin sacrifices himself to help Tony escape, urging him with his dying breath to change for the better.

After much shooting, burning, exploding and a quick flight, Tony escapes. He crash-lands head-first into a sand dune and somehow survives with no broken bones. Must be the alcoholic in him. Y'know...the magical aura that somehow protects drunks in serious vehicle collisions? Yeah. So he makes it back home to America, has a couple cheezeburgers and holds a press conference telling the world that Stark Industries will no longer make weapons. This is where we start to see the truth of Obadiah's character. He's in it for the money and the power and doesn't care who gets hurt along the way. This is also where he sees Tony's new chest reactor.

Over time, Tony builds himself the Mark II suit and tests out its capabilities and weaknesses, further refining it into the Mark III. He also makes himself a new "heart" Arc reator. He tells Pepper to destroy the old one but, instead, she puts it in a little glass case and gives it back as a gift.

The next half hour-ish is mostly just Tony playing with his new toy. He goes back to Afghanistan, saves a village from the Ten Rings, and blows up a shipment of new missiles that Obadiah has supplied the terrorists. A little aerial chase and a destroyed US fighter jet later, and Rhodey finds out about Tony's new suit. Pepper also learns the truth.

Next comes the twist. Well, not really a big one since most people should have seen this coming. Obadiah takes a trip to visit Raza, Tony's old captor, who has dug up the remains of the Mark I armour and pieced it back together, for the most part. After a compelling speach about taking over the world, Obadiah double-crosses Raza, kills his men, and takes everything involving the Mark I.

Right about now is the point where I'm starting to get bored with writing this review so I'll try to summarize as much as possible.

Pepper has to go fetch some info from Tony's office. Obadiah comes in and spooks her but she gets the info and leaves. He finds out and busts a blood vessel then goes and shouts at his scientists about Tony building a mini-reactor in a cave from scraps.

Idea!

Obadiah visits Tony and steals his newer, more powerful reactor heart, leaving Tony to die. Pepper, meanwhile, has found herself a new group of friends. Agents from SHIELD, a government organization whose purpose it is to keeps tabs on the world's superheroes. They go running off to arrest Obadiah.

By now, Tony has crawled his way down to his basement and plugged in his old reactor. Rhodey shows up and watches Tony take off. My favourite scene in the whole movie is when Rhodey looks over at the Mark II armour hanging off to the side and says, "Not this time, baby," before opting for the car. This, of course, being in reference to the fact that Rhodey later gets a suit of his own and becomes War Machine, Iron Man's partner.

So Obadiah reveals his big and bad suit, now powered by Tony's heart. The SHIELD agents get beat down and Pepper is about to get pumped full of lead before Tony swoops in and saves the day.

*enter long fight scene*

Hurray! Tony wins! There is much destruction and joy.

The movie ends off with Tony getting ready to do another press conference regarding the fun he had the previous night. SHIELD is all over his cover story, clearly having done this sort of thing before. Tony and Pepper look like they're about to start up a romance but, instead, she appears to shoot him down. Tony goes out to adress the people and, surprise surprise, tells everyone that he is Iron Man.

Don't leave just yet. While the credits roll, I'm going to cover a few things that I found to be a little...annoying? Some little flaws, I guess.

First would have to be the lack of explaination behind Tony's heart. First off, he gets hit by shrapnel and Yensin puts the electromagnet in his chest to keep the remaining pieces from entering his heart. Next he has the smaller Mark I arc reactor to do the job of the car battery. Next, however, we see Pepper pull out the magnet and replace the first reactor with a much larger version. The part that bugs me, aside from the fact that he no longer has a collar bone, is that the reactor went in pretty deep. I'm no doctor but how far back is the heart? It looked like Pepper's hand was rooting in right around where it should have been. And if Tony did somehow have his heart removed along the line, I think they should have explained that.

Second...the Mark I armour wouldn't have been able to withstand the firepower of that gun turret. Not to mention the deafening pang from when that guy shot his helmet. I'll just chalk that one up to cool-looking movie making.

Third, and most importantly, who decided to have Pepper wearing high heels in that fight scene at the end? She was running from Obadiah over steel grating, traversing over a floor covered in shattered glass, dodging exploding bits of Arc reactor. Seriously? That's just over the top.

Okay guys, looks like the credits are over. You can go now. Thanks for rea......oh wait! Look! There's a whole other scene after the credits! What's this? Someone is in Tony's mansion...and...he sounds an aweful lot like...oh my God, it's Samuel L. Jackson! Sam Jackson is playing Nick Fury, the director of SHIELD!? One of the baddest badasses in the Marvel Universe? Well, that's certainly fitting!

Tony: "JARVIS?"

JARVIS: "Welcome home...si....."

Nick: *echoing Tony's words and the Black Sabbath line* "I am Iron Man.... Do you think you're the only superhero in the world?" (This is about the point where I went into a fit of nerdjoy) "Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger Universe. You just don't know it yet."

Tony: "Who the hell are you?"

Nick: "Nick Fury. Director of SHIELD. I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative." (And this is about the point where I exploded)

*cut to black*

So that was my view and review on Iron Man. Stay tuned next month for The Incredible Hulk because Iron Man himself will be making a cameo appearance! Also, this one should be a bajillion times better than the first flop.

[Drake 53]

So...what did everyone else think of the movie?

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