Iron Man

Rating: 8/10 (26 January 2014)

(from http://cobyscomics.blogspot.com/2014/01/iron-man.html) This movie set the stage for such great things to come. Truthfully, I believe if Robert Downey, Jr. had not done the marvel-ous job he did portraying the "genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," then we would not even be talking about a MCU.
Downey's brilliance is in his one-liners, those quips he delivers so perfectly they stick in your head for days afterward. You know what I'm talking about, like when he first dons the original Iron Man armor and absorbs all that AK fire, then turns around and says, "my turn".
Or, the ultimate one-liner, the one that really sold the movie and made everyone like Black Sabbath again, "I am Iron Man".
One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Tony gets Pepper's small hands to help him switch out mini-Arc Reactors. When she yanks that copper ring out, I almost fell off the couch laughing.
And, yeah, OK, we've got to suspend disbelief for the scene to work, but so what? This is a superhero movie, it's all about suspending disbelief.
Speaking of Pepper Potts, this movie did more for female supporting actresses than anything I can remember in a long time. She's more than just a damsel in distress. Not only does she help Tony Stark do everything (including remember his Social Security Number)--which, incidentally, is nearly identical to the relationship I have with my own wife (sans the whole billionaire playboy thing)--but she plays a major role in this movie. She becomes even more important as the Iron Man trilogy goes on, but we see shades of that in this first movie, where she even helps Iron Man defeat the Iron Monger at the end. So, yeah, I say, give Pepper her own movie! I'd watch it.
My other favorite scene from Iron Man is when he goes back to Afghanistan to blow up all of the Stark Industries weapons. First off, I'd like to point out how much better the Tony Stark in Afghanistan origin story is than Tony Stark in Vietnam or Tony Stark in the Gulf. The creators of this movie took Stan Lee's original idea of having Iron Man be the anti-communist and updated it to make him the anti-terrorist. Secondly, it's always fun watching the movie and telling people, "hey, Bagram Air Field, that's where I was for 6 months" and "yeah, Konar Province is a real place, and it's really bad".
But, yeah, how badass is it when Iron Man shoots his little missile and then turns around, with the tank blowing up behind him? Hard core.
One thing my wife spotted in Iron Man that I completely missed was the Ten Rings flag.
This is the same terrorist organization that the "Mandarin" would go on to "lead" in Iron Man 3. I can't believe I didn't notice this before! By calling this organization the "Ten Rings", Marvel was setting up the villain for the third film way back in 2008 when the first one came out. Just another example of why I love the MCU and Marvel's Master Plan.
I love how pretty much every movie in the MCU culminates in a Final Battle. Iron Man started this trend, and I love it! In Iron Man we get two giant robots fighting on the streets--how awesome is that! The Iron Monger hits Tony with a motorcycle, smashes him through a bus, and flies him into inner-space, all while taunting him in that great Jeff Bridges Evil TRON Supervillain voice. And it ends with anti-damsel Pepper blowing up the Arc Reactor with a Big Badda Boom that can be seen from space.
Finally, we get to the Deleted/Extended Scenes, which I watched for the first time on this viewing of Iron Man. Unlike most movies' deleted scenes, I was actually glad they cut almost all of what they did. If I had seen those Airmen doing their Parade Deck Rifle Drill in the original movie, it probably would've made me hate the thing. The one Deleted Scene they probably should've kept showed Obadiah Stane actually falling into the Arc Reactor before Pepper blew it up. They left him getting blowed up implied in the original movie, which is always dangerous because it leaves things open for one of those comicbook revivals they like to do.
Overall, Iron Man was a fantastic movie, one that kicked the whole MCU off. I'd say it, with Robert Downey, Jr.'s performance, is one of the most important superhero movies ever made. Overall, I'd give it a 9 out of 10 stars.
Oh yeah, we can't forget the obligatory Stan Lee cameo! In Iron Man, he appears as none other than the original Playboy, Hugh Hefner