Starring:
Robert Downey Jr.
Terrence Howard
Jeff Bridges
Gwyneth Paltrow
Leslie Bibb
Director:
Jon Favreau
Likes:
- This is a great stand-alone movie that launched errythang in the MCU, with the exception of The Incredible Hulk (but we don’t like to think about that one). I’m not the first one to say that RDJ is Tony Stark; a man without the cleanest reputation who reforms himself and is beloved by the public again. He’s great to watch on screen, and the effects of the suit are spectacular in this first installment—you can feel the weight of the suit as he gets thrown around in battle; something that is lost in later appearances (sure, you can say his other Marks were constructed with lighter materials, but the heaviness of Iron Man is a little detail that I feel adds so much).
- You get to hear several iterations of the original Iron Man cartoon’s theme song throughout the film.
- Overall, this is a really fun movie, and the twist at the end where Stark comes out and says he’s Iron Man was something basically unheard of in superhero canon. Looking at you, Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker, Clark Kent, etc.
Dislikes:
- I love Jeff Bridges in whatever he does. But this was probably my least favorite performance from him. However, hearing Datsik and Excision sample his War Monger quotes in “Calypso” made me gigglier than a little schoolboy on Christmas.
- I don’t know why I never noticed this in the countless times I watched Iron Man before, but Pepper is kind of dumb. She has a few key roles, like keeping Tony’s original arc reactor for his chest, and getting the dirt on Bridges’ Obadiah Stane, but for the most part she just seems to be in shock and awe of the big, smart men who are fighting the battles. Agent Coulson blowing up the door to Sector 16 while she stupidly babbles on was always a bit that annoyed me.
Are you fucking kidding me.