The Tony Stark Way: Style Beats Substance

Rating: 7/10 (7 April 2018)

When I went back to watch Iron-Man for this review, I remembered how unfinished this movie felt and how I thought it was an excellent start to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but by no means was it a great movie. Good, but not great. But that being said, there was something so cool about this movie that you forgive its shortcomings because, without Robert Downey Jr.'s hyper-narcissism, this movie would have only have been known for the extraordinary Iron-Man suit.
Everyone knows how the story of Robert Downey Jr.'s career resurrection, it's biblical in scale at this point and I couldn't have been happier to see him make Tony Stark into a household name. In Iron-Man, we meet the billionaire, womanizing, and war profiteering Stark who learns the horrors of war first hand when his military caravan is ambushed by Afghan rebels led by Raza-your stereotypical Islamic terrorists that could have easily have been plucked from James Cameron's True Lies. But this was the era we were in-the end of the Bush era and American's were growing tired of war. So it makes sense that Stark's feelings mirrored this after one of his weapons were turned against him in the attack-leaving him with shrapnel in his chest from a Stark Industries bomb that exploded a bit late. With the help of a Middle Eastern doctor named Yinsen, Stark is saved thanks to magnet installed in his chest to pull the shrapnel away from his heart. And as cool as the upgraded version of Stark's chest-installed Arc-reactor is, the hole in his chest makes for some of the more squeamish moments in this film.
So, let's talk about the villain. Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane-the acting COO of Stark Industries and you guessed it, he 's another stereotypical villain. Stane is a white collar corporate madman who seems to have no motivation other than being dominant. That's it. That's all I got. Obadiah isn't even remotely impressive, and his final method of attack is uninspired and makes for one of the weaker third acts in a Marvel film. Luckily, Robert Downey Jr. does enough heavy lifting in this film to make Iron-Man fun to watch. Let's face it, this a movie about a great character, not a great story. Stark is so intriguing that you can't help but wonder how he'll outthink his opponents. The Tony Stark character, as portrayed by Downey is one of the best comic-book interpretations ever, and it's the life-blood of this movie.
Now, can we stop and just applaud the production design of that suit. Everyone knows that suiting up is the pinnacle moment of any superhero film. The first time the film reveal the outfit that will strike fear into the hearts of evil men is as essential to the character's mythology as their backstory. But there is something about the Iron-Man suit that eclipses every superhero costume ever seen. Maybe it's the orbiting camera, NASCAR pit-stop like nature of the sequence. Perhaps it's the testing of the all the air dampeners and locking of the metallic suit linkage. Maybe it's the badass eyes on the face of the first Iron-Man suit. Or maybe it's the lack of synthetic rubber and leotards that make it so cool. Whatever it is, it's that suit that makes Iron-Man one of the most spectacular introductions to a comic-book character. While Iron-Man is a pretty simplistic story, it's an excellent character study, and it's got enough fresh CGI to make you think that a man flying around in an iron suit is a pretty good idea. But the most fantastic thing about this film happens after the credits-the introduction of the narrative linking post-credit scene that is the drug of choice for Marvel fans worldwide.