As part of the series Ten Days of Comic Book Movies.
#8: Iron Man (2008)
Trade Paperback Tickets: This movie is beautiful. Every little homage and setup, every twisting, cutting, snarky, sarcastic remark from Tony Stark. At the time they were released I actually preferred Iron Man to The Dark Knight in several ways (sacrilege points, amirite?) Jon Favreau did an amazing job, though. Visiting Afghanistan and crashing, mandating the need for the arc reactor may not be a work of genius but it did allow for a slow but believable climb for an audience who likely didn’t have a lot of actual Iron Man knowledge. (My own is limited but not nonexistent. I was always more of a DC girl than a Marvel girl, [other than X-Men] though in recent years, I’d say my love for Marvel has grown exponentially.) All of the cutting jokes going into the movie were about the fact that Robert Downey, Jr. was seriously the choice for Tony Stark? (The jokes wrote themselves, come on.) But he was absolutely perfectly cast for that part.
What I truly like about this movie version:
- Our friend Mr. Stark is perfectly cast.
- Nobody is a useless sidekick. Pepper Potts is a true counterpart to Tony Stark, an equal (perhaps even a superior in so many ways), and she is just as biting and snapping as he is. Their dynamic is wonderful.
- Jeff Bridges makes a good “villain.” (I always hesitate to use terminology like that when it’s a story of a good guy gone wrong, or however it wants to be played.) He’s great.
- I actually felt like the plot was less driven by the action and more driven by the characters, which is a rarity in almost any story that involves weapons and big explosions and CGI. Nonetheless it was here and I’m even more impressed because it was a comic book movie. It may not be super evident but I’m kind of a character-driven story person. I like stories that show me the person rather than the person’s actions. Iron Man actually did a good job of that (much better than its sequel did).
- Tony Stark’s reveal of “I am Iron Man” is deadpan awesome.
- Nick Fury! (Does that even count?)
What I think may not be so good:
- Maybe a little too much time spent in the desert getting turned into Iron Man. As I have noted several times in this series I really love origin stories but the process of his turning into Iron Man took a long time and it was the slowest part of the entire movie.
- At the end of the day aren’t you still in love with a weapons manufacturer?
Endorsements & Prohibitions:
9.1. Sure. It’s like the Olympics up in here. I think the decimal point is okay. 55.845 is also okay.
Dumpster Jedi 