Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet... and neither did we.

Rating: 9/10 (30 August 2018)

In May 2008, there were two big films on my and a lot of others radars: ''Iron Man'' and ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull''. While the last one of the films mentioned have a rather negative legacy, Iron Man certainly has not. It was released to ample critical and commercial success and even started a ''cinematic universe'' before that even was a word. Comeback kid Robert Downey Jr. went from an extremely talented and respected actor into a reliable bankable superstar and cemented his comeback into the big league. It also proved Jon Favreau could handle a big blockbuster (which he did beautifully) yet with a playful, personal tone.
Nowadays we all know the origin story of Tony Stark, rich, egocentric billionaire who is kidnapped by enemy soldiers after a weapons test, he sustains life-threatening injuries in the process is forced to make weapons for the enemies. Stark, however has a trick up his sleeve that will save his life and get him out of captivity. He builds a suit of armour and with it, he escapes and returns home to the US. Now free of captivity he is a changed man and decides to upgrade his suit and become a hero... IRON MAN.
One of the things that always impresses me about this film, is the way Favreau and his writers updates the origin story without compromising what makes that story great. It takes the origins Vietnam-war premise and updates it to a war-torn Afghanistan effortlessly and most importantly, they make the premise believable. They even took the character of Edwin Jarvis (An Alfred Pennyworth-like butler) of the comic books and turned him into an AI, voiced by Paul Bettany. On paper that change of a established character in the comics might have been troublesome, but it just works wonderfully like the rest of the updates. That is because of a combination of assured direction and vision by both the director and producers.
And let's not forget this movie's magic maker: Robert Downey Jr. himself. He makes the role of Tony Stark instantly iconic, and human. They're personal lives (fiction and real life) are eerily similar when it comes to their public life, both with early success and substances abuse, and how they overcame these flaws to become better version of themselves. He brings a heart and humanity to a role that easily could have been ignored in the long run by an lesser actor. It's the way that he performs Stark's change of heart/conscious that always impresses me... even though his conscious changes for the better, it still doesn't mean that his personality takes a U-turn. He's still kind off a jerk by the end of the film, but he is a likeable jerk. That is because his emotional journey rings truthfully so that we believe his change of the better, without compromising his personality. Everything he says feels natural; that is because he and the rest of the cast improvised a lot of their dialogue that gives the film a fun and memorable, but also a pleasingly believable dialogue.
The other cast members does a fine job as well; Gwyneth Paltrow brings a fun innocence with a dry sense of humour that spars well with the chemistry between her and Downey, Jr. Jeff Bridges is also in fine form as the ambitious and greedy Obadiah Stane, who's been plotting against Tony Stark the whole time. To round up the main cast members, we have Terence Howard (later replaced by Don Cheadle) who gives a good performance as Stark disciplined but loyal friend and military liaison, James ''Rhodey'' Rhodes. Shaun Toub, Faran Tahir and Clark Gregg also have memorable appearances in the film. Gregg's character of Agent Coulson became so popular that he appeared in many other future MCU-films and a TV-show (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D).
The pace of the film works great and compliments the tone and the vibe that the film aims for. The action is fun and fast even though the finale is a bit on autopilot, hero against a similar powered villain. However, it is still a near perfect film; the only real gripe I have is the mentioned finale that never reaches the height that the rest of the film has. It is still fun to see the hero and the villain kick the crap out of each other even though the two first acts are a bit better. A great and solid film deserved all the praise it got. 10 years later, its legacy is greater than we could have possibly imagined. At this moment the MCU have released 20 films and earned roughly $17.450 billion at the worldwide box office. But it is important to remember it all started with a man in a cave, with a box of scraps. 9/10 STARS.
This film also have one of the greatest and most surprising post-credits scenes of all time.