Howdy, friends. Yeah, sorry about not being there last week. Broadband trouble.

Welcome to the first MCU review, and of the first hero that kicked it off. I AM:

IRON-MAN

As I’ve stated multiple times before, I frickin’ LOVE armored heroes ever since I was little, and Iron-Man was a definite one of them, and back then 7 years ago I was working on an screenplay for an armored hero… which I might revive, who knows? Back in 2007, I always wondered what a live-action Iron-Man would be like, and I really asked that after watching an animated Iron-Man movie that came out that year. Needless to say; that animated movie wasn’t very good… at all. Then when I was watching the first Transformers movie, when I saw that first little teaser for Iron-Man… man, I was so pumped up! And I heard that this was the first product from marvel itself, converting their own movie studio.

“Robert Downy Jr.’s gonna be Tony Stark? That guy’s a junkie. This movie won’t even finish shooting if he’s in it. This movie’s gonna suck.”

You’re gonna see these quotes I found in some of these reviews, cuz I want you all to know these are one of the many dumbass mistakes that certain naysayers and hardcore DC film fans have done/still do to this day.

Anyhoo, we open on Tony Stark riding with a convoy through the Iranian desert, which was good in keeping up with the times; in the comics is was during the Vietnam war. “Please, don’t put this on your MySpace page” Oh, the irony since MySpace is pretty much gone out of existence.
The convoy’s attacked by unknown assailants. While Tony tries to get outta there to no avail, a missile lands near him… which has his company name on it! Kaboom! Luckily, Tony had a vest on, but the damage was already done and shrapnel was shot into him.
Stark’s been taken by a group of terrorists calling themselves the ‘Ten Rings,’ an obvious tie-in to the Mandarin, if anyone knows the story.
We flashback to 24 hours earlier and we get to know Stark; brash, arrogant, self-obsessed. But he’s been a prodigy since he was a baby, took over his late father’s industry at age 21. People criticize him for his weapons, calling him a ‘merchant of death.’ But we do see he means well… even if that involves him bedding that pretty cute reporter that called him the aforementioned ‘merchant of death.’
We see his relationship with his long-time assistant, Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts. Which a lot of people bitch about her being useless and whiny all the time, no she’s not, you’re exaggerating.
We see the A.I. program J.A.R.V.I.S., voiced by the awesome Paul Betanny, who’s gonna be the Vision for Avengers 2 (spoiler alert) Yeah, Jarvis was an actual butler in the comics, but obviously they didn’t wanna rip off Tony having a butler like Wayne has with Alfred.
And we see his relationship with his best friend James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes. Now, this may seem weird to some but… I never really cared for Terrence Howard as Rhodey. I just didn’t think he fit the part. I’m glad they replaced him with Don Chedle.
We also meet one of Tony’s other friends, his driver by the name of Happy Hogan, played by the director himself Jon Favreau.
And then there’s Obadiah Stane, played by The Dude, Jeff Bridges himself. C’mon, ya just gotta know he’s the bad guy. After Tony’s father, Howard Stark’s death, Stane had control of the company until Tony came in when he was 21.
Now at this point, Hydra is still in hiding within S.H.I.E.L.D., and when I first saw this, I kinda thought Stane killed Howard. That wasn’t the case at all. Howard died in a car accident… or so we thought. (See Captian America: Winter Soldier review)
So, the deal was the Ten Rings were hired to kill Stark, but they didn’t know/weren’t told it was Stark, so they decided to keep him alive so he can build them the Jericho missile that he demonstrated with the military on an Iran base before going on that convoy that got attacked.
The blast that sent shrapnel in his chest did a lot more damage, and a scientist named Yensin saved him by getting whatever shrapnel he could out of there but a lot’s still there and if not cheek, the barbs would reach his heart within a week, so ol’ Yensisn hooked up an electromagnet to his chest, rigged with a car battery.
Held hostage in a cave, threatened, and on the verge of death, Stark’s got no options, but Yensin tells him not to waste his life. And that moment of clarity is what pushed Tony to make a miniature Arch Reactor IN A CAVE WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS! Sorry, I just like that line. XD
That little Reactor’s got enough juice to power up a little something Stark and Yensin makes in that cave for 3 months as a big rouse to the Ten Rings. But the Rings’ boss is getting impatient, and threatens them to have the missile done by tomorrow, or die. No options left, they decide to get out now. And that’s the big reveal of the Iron-Man Mk. 1 suit, and I gotta say for such a clunky, crude prototype, this suit was still able to kick ass. Stark in the suit manages to beat all the bad guys, but Yensin sacrifices himself so Stark could escape. Now throughout this 1st act with him and Yensin, we get to know these guys, and find out that Yensin has a family in a town called Gomira. But Yensin is dying and it turns out his family is already dead. You did good, man.
Stark blasts his way outta that mountain where he was being kept after destroying all the weapons they had that were Stark Industries. Later on Stark’s found by Rhodey and taken home a little worse for wear.

Now would’ve been a good time to get all that shrapnel outta you, Tony, since apparently it’s so easy to get it out. (hint hint!)

Soon as he gets home, Stark makes a statement he’s shutting down all the weapons manufacturing in his company, causing a massive riot even throughout the company board to keep him out. It’s there Pepper meets Agent Phil Coulson, and he doesn’t appear at all what he seems (nudge, wink wink)
But this gives Tony an ample opportunity to make a new arch reactor and replace his old one… with Pepper’s help in a hilarious scene. Later on Pepper gives the old Reactor to Tony as a present, to show he has a heart. Awwwwww ^^
So, Tony builds the silvery Mk 2 Iron-Man suit. Through trial and error (an icing problem while reaching up Earth’s atmosphere) Tony’s ingenuity is poured into the Mk 3 suit, which is the awesome gold and hotrod red design.
On TV he learns about a party by Stark Industries that he wasn’t invited to, which he goes to.

By the way: STAN LEE CAMEO! He’s dressed up as Hugh Heifner outside the party XD

At the party, Tony learns about his weapons are still being made and shipped Gomira, which Stark recognizes the name.
Learning about what’s going on in Gomira, Stark takes action and arms, donning his newly-completed Iron-Man suit and kick some ass and destroying all the weapons they had.
En route home however, two fighter pilots spot him and attack, that’s how Rhodey learns and gets involved. During that little misunderstanding with the pilots, one of them crashes into Iron-Man and the guy’s plummeting down but can’t deploy his chute till he comes in and does it.
Rhodey labels it as an unfortunate ‘training exercise,’ which the cutaway scene had a huge laugh in the theatre. (And anyone who says that comedy doesn’t belong in superhero movies, looking at you ErrorProject, needs to go back to film school)

Now, from the beginning this movie had a lot of strengths, very little to complain about… until when we start the 3rd act here, when we learn that Stane was in cahoots with the Ten Rings… who actually hired them to kill Tony, but they refused unless they were paid more.

Stane hired them to kill someone in a convoy, but he didn’t tell them who they were supposed to kill?

The Ten Rings had found what was left of the Mk 1 suit in the sands, and negotiated Stane to make an army of these kinda suits… but Stane makes his rebuttal with a portable paralysis machine and he has his men kill the Ten Rings soldiers, except the boss for some reason, and his paralysis only lasts 15 minutes. And we never see that boss again at all.
Stane gets the Mk 1 suit and gets his team to make the carbon copy prototype, the ‘Iron Monger.’
Pepper learns that Tony is Iron-Man, and we see his resolve in wanting to do good for others, but since he has no access to his files anymore, he has Pepper go in pull up some files.
It’s here that Pepper learns what Stane’s building, and when she leaves after a little brief conversation with her, sees she went into his files… and doesn’t have security stop her for some reason… through on the way out, Pepper bumps into Coulson again, maybe he didn’t wanna make a scene?
Stane’s team can’t make a miniature arch reactor like Stark can, so he takes matters into his own hands.
When Pepper calls Tony, Stane’s there and gets him with the paralysis machine, and takes out his arch reactor. That’s when Tony learns that Stane hired those goons to kill him. Stane leaves Tony for dead… typical James Bond situation.
Tony limps his way in and gets that old arch reactor.
Pepper with the help of Coulson and several Agents go to Stark Industries to confront Stane, who finishes installing the arch reactor into the new Iron Monger suit.
And I gotta say this, that suit is frickin’ huge, there was no damn way Stane was gonna get away with what he did/does in this final climax. You can argue that he lost his mind, drunk off power, but it’s a flimsy excuse. He gets busted, gets taken out the suit and he’ll go, ‘Well that was stupid of me.”
Anyhoo, Tony flies in, but his chest piece is rapidly losing power, and his fight with Stane takes it the streets, then to the air… to the very sky where he thought he outwits Stane when his suit ices up.
Tony’s losing power, but Stane’s back and nearly kills him. Thanks to Tony, he has Pepper overload the bigger arch reactor in the factory to blow it up, which she does and the result kills Stane.
Tony looks to be dead, but the little light flickers… how he was saves in another mystery.
Next day, Tony’s going to make a statement with a cover-up story that involved Stane and his factory, and Tony’s reading the paper about: ‘Who is this Iron-Man?’ Which he states his suit isn’t made of iron. Just like the line in Ant-Man, “Is it too late to change the name?” Marvel knows how silly their hero names are, and they make their stuff self-aware.
And Pepper says thanks to Coulson and his agency, which was a mouthful to begin with, so he says to call them ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’
Now… I don’t exactly know why Tony admitted who he was in public, that’s really painting a target in the back of your head, and other enemies will go after his friends. I guess he wanted to tell people he means to help, and keeping a secret this bad would cause more trouble. That’s up for debate.

Well, that was Iron Man, and I gotta say I loved this movie.

But if it hadn’t been for the 3rd act, I would’ve called this the best superhero movie out there. But even if they didn’t re-tweaked the last part, I still rate this better than the abysmal ‘Dark Knight’ movie.

And I really thought they should’ve tied in more Mandarin with this, I mean they showed the Ten Rings. They should’ve showed Mandarin in like the mid-credit scene, cuz I was really looking forward to seeing Tony scare off against the him.

This movie had heart – I deem it worthy to get on DVD.

After credit scene: Tony comes home and meets Director Nick Fury, played by that stunning mofo Samuel L. Jackson. Funny thing about that scene, that was all shot within one hour, they were really trying to keep Samuel’s role under wraps. But a lotta good that did, by Monday fans raved about it.
Another funny thing, Samuel’s a big comic fan himself, he read Nick Fury, knows he’s a white guy. When the Ultimates comic line came in 2000, the Nick Fury there was inspired by Samuel, and he approved. So it’s nothing PC related, or racial! Get that outta your heads.
So, what does Nick offer Tony? The ‘Avenger’s Initiative’… and scene!

Soon as I heard that line, that’s when I knew that the Avengers where coming. Heard about them from my dad, saw cartoons of them, and I couldn’t wait. Course I had to wait 4 years, but that was all worth it.

Later on that year, I was gonna see a rehash of our favorite smasher. But that’s a review for another time.

Till next time, live the dream and draw it.

Thanks for your time.