Over the past few years, when a Marvel movie comes out, I see it as the official kick-off of the summer movie lineup. You know, it's really something exciting for me. A lot of people that know me will tell you that I'm a big superhero fan- mainly a big Marvel fan.
In the summer of 2009, I went on a missions trip with my church youth group to run a Vacation Bible School camp in Mancelona, Michigan. For a week, each day we played games with kids and taught them about the Bible, also eating lunch with them and doing arts and crafts. This was something I really enjoyed and this was the second time I had gone on it. Anyway each year WOW Camp, as we like to call it, has a different theme. We circle everything around the theme. And that year's theme was superheroes. We played superhero-themed games, made superhero-themed crafts, etc. I was on the skit team and over the week we taught kid's lessons from the Bible using skits. I was a superhero in it. Which I thought was pretty cool, but at that point I don't think I had ever seen any superhero movies. After that week in Mancelona, I developed a much bigger interest in superheroes and superhero films. So over time I eventually saw all of the major superhero movies that have come out during my lifetime, X-Men being the first in 2000.
The next year I saw Iron Man 2 when it was in theaters, the night the film opened. Believe it or not, I actually saw that one before I saw the first one. Crazy, right? A lot of people hate on the second one but I actually liked it a lot when I saw it. Maybe it was just because they look at it in comparison to the first one. Anyway, I will get to reviewing the second one in the coming days. I watched the first one not long after the second one and was amazed by this movie. With the third installment of the franchise coming in just a couple days, I figured I would rewatch the first two movies and try to review them. I figured it'd be smart of me to get those done for a couple reasons. First is that it will all be fresh in my mind as I go to see and review the third one. Secondly I figured if I'm going to watch them, you guys might be interested in hearing what I have to say about them, and then you'll know more about what I thought about them when I review the third one. If I have time, I will watch The Avengers, but if I get started on reviewing that one, it might just be too much. So as of right now I'm not planning on reviewing that. Maybe I can review only the Iron Man character in the film, and/or I can review the whole movie some time over the summer. But I'm not even sure if I will have time to watch it before I see Iron Man 3. So we will see.
As I have said, the opening of a Marvel film at the beginning of the summer is something that I get very excited about. It's a great thing that Marvel has been able to open their own studios and release some the films of some their characters the way they've wanted to. And for the most part, I think they've done a good job. Iron Man started it all. It started the whole Avengers project. That little scene at the end with Nick Fury just gets you so excited, and at the time you weren't sure if it was actually going to happen. Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk came out in the summer of 2008, with both films being very solid. Iron Man is looked at by many as one of the best superhero movies of all-time. The Incredible Hulk was good, but it isn't remembered by people as well and I'm not sure exactly what most people think about it. Edward Norton, who is a great actor, gave a great performance in that film. Great actors give great performances. Clearly the most-talked about film from that summer was The Dark Knight, which well deserves it. It was a great film.
Ah gosh, I keep getting so off topic. But as I was saying, the pre-Avengers Marvel films have been pretty good in my opinion. Whenever one comes out at the beginning of May, I know summer isn't too far away (I did NOT mean to rhyme there, I'm sorry). There was really only one Avengers film I didn't like much, and that was Captain America. I thought Cap was a film with a lot of potential and it could have been WAY better. I saw it as pretty mediocre. Chris Evans was very good in it, but it felt like they montaged through a lot of it. The film had THREE montages in it. They montaged through all the cool World War II stuff I was really excited to see when I bought my ticket to the film. Maybe Captain America is better to have as a supporting character than a lead (like his role in The Avengers), I don't know. But it felt like they rushed it so they could set it all up for The Avengers. Avengers was one of my favorite films of 2012, and is one of my favorite movies ever. If Captain America absolutely had to be made the way it was, in order to make Avengers better, I can live with it. But it was a pretty weak film in my opinion. However, Avengers was great and after it's release, we have now begun what Marvel is calling "Avengers Phase Two." Marvel is releasing sequels to Thor, Captain America (not sure how I feel about that one), and of course the Iron Man films. They also plan to release a Guardians of the Galaxy film in 2014. All these movies ultimately leading to the currently untitled sequel to The Avengers in 2015, with an Ant-Man film planned to come out also in that year, which will begin "Avengers Phase Three." Whew, that's a lot.
Okay, now going back to Iron Man again. Iron Man is the film that started it all. It's what gave us all a reason to stay in the theater and actually look at the credits after a film ended. Because you knew something was coming after the credits. You knew they should show some 30 second clip that would reveal something about the future of the Marvel films. Maybe they weren't even that important. I remember when I saw Iron Man 2 and saw the little post-credits scene that showed Thor's hammer stuck in the ground. It didn't mean a whole lot. I knew Thor was coming next May. But it still left me very excited and I couldn't wait to see it.
Alright, so now let's waste no more time and start talking about Iron Man. I'm not sure how long this review will be. Also, this will probably contain spoilers. It's been around for five years. What are you doing reading an Iron Man review when you haven't seen it yet? Go rent it today!
So this is the Iron Man origin story. It shows us how Tony Stark becomes Iron Man. One of the things I love about superhero films is the character development. Seeing someone become a hero. Iron Man is perfect. Tony Stark is living life like any other billionaire- for himself. And then he's basically blown up and captured in Afghanistan and fellow captive Yinsen creates the electromagnet he puts in Tony's chest to keep him alive. The people that captured Tony want him to help them and then they will free him. Instead he decides to develop a battle suit for himself out of scrap metal with Yinsen, which ultimately becomes the first Iron Man suit. He plans to use the suit to take out those that have captured the two of them. Yinsen sacrifices himself so that Tony can have more time for the suit to charge itself up. Yinsen in some ways is the Christ-like figure who sacrifices himself, which is a theme in the movie.
Tony escapes and decides that his company will no longer manufacture weapons. He then puts his time into developing a better Iron Man suit- his last one got destroyed as he escaped- and he wants to fight for the good of mankind. This is another biblical theme I see. Ephesisans 6 talks about putting on the armor of God and fighting for his glory. Living life for Him and getting ready for battle. In some ways it's like Tony Stark is a metaphor for that. He is living a life that is self-pleasing, and then he hits his low point and builds a suit of armor and fights for the good of people. So I think that's pretty cool. There's good character development from Tony at the beginning to Tony at the end. That's not to say he's perfect in any regards, however he is caring more about others and putting others before himself.
So as the movie rolls along, there are some cool scenes where we get to see what the suit can do. Tony becomes Iron Man and it's really cool to see that over the course of the movie. Another thing to add is that the talk about science and building the suit and everything doesn't bore you. In fact, it makes you wish you were smarter! It makes you wish you were able to build this kind of stuff! So that's really well done too.
The acting in the movie is great. Another thing that I love about these kinds of Marvel movies is how the humor is used. You have good bits of humor throughout the film, even when you aren't expecting it at times. And that's what makes the movie fun. A good example of humor is when Tony's best friend Colonel Rhodes is in Stark's lab after he leaves, he looks over and sees another suit. He thinks for a moment and then says, "maybe next time...". This is funny because in the next movie he works with Tony as War Machine in his other suit! Good little comedic way of foreshadowing something. But yeah, the humor helps make this movie fun. That's what a superhero movie should be. It should be like a comic book; which is action-packed, entertaining, interesting and funny.
The villain is this guy Obadiah (Jeff Bridges). He's a solid villain. He was Tony's dad's business partner and is Tony's second-in-command. He's a real scumbag and you don't like him at all. He's not a very memorable villain. Like you might not remember his name a couple months after you see the movie. And maybe that's because they don't give him a villain name. Regardless, Jeff Bridges gives a good performance as this guy.
Gwyneth Paltrow is good in this movie too as Pepper Potts. They do a good job of showing how her relationship with Tony starts to develop, which as we know they are dating going in to this third movie I will be seeing in a couple days.
The ending of this film is very good too. The way Tony Stark is talking at the press conference and then he just says "I am Iron Man." It ends then and you know there is still a lot to come from this series. I like to see the contrast between heroes that reveal their identities and heroes that keep it a secret. It's no fun when they're all the same! So I think this movie did a great job of handling the origin story as well as making a very good movie in the process.
So yeah, I don't know what else there really is to cover with this movie. I didn't want this to be too long, so I guess I'll wrap things up here. But again, this is the movie that really started it all. It's a great fun film. Not sure how interested you all are in reading a review of a film that came out five years ago, but I figured why not. Also this is still one of my first reviews so I'm hoping to keep getting better at this review thing.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading and as always, let me hear your thoughts!
Tony escapes and decides that his company will no longer manufacture weapons. He then puts his time into developing a better Iron Man suit- his last one got destroyed as he escaped- and he wants to fight for the good of mankind. This is another biblical theme I see. Ephesisans 6 talks about putting on the armor of God and fighting for his glory. Living life for Him and getting ready for battle. In some ways it's like Tony Stark is a metaphor for that. He is living a life that is self-pleasing, and then he hits his low point and builds a suit of armor and fights for the good of people. So I think that's pretty cool. There's good character development from Tony at the beginning to Tony at the end. That's not to say he's perfect in any regards, however he is caring more about others and putting others before himself.
So as the movie rolls along, there are some cool scenes where we get to see what the suit can do. Tony becomes Iron Man and it's really cool to see that over the course of the movie. Another thing to add is that the talk about science and building the suit and everything doesn't bore you. In fact, it makes you wish you were smarter! It makes you wish you were able to build this kind of stuff! So that's really well done too.
The acting in the movie is great. Another thing that I love about these kinds of Marvel movies is how the humor is used. You have good bits of humor throughout the film, even when you aren't expecting it at times. And that's what makes the movie fun. A good example of humor is when Tony's best friend Colonel Rhodes is in Stark's lab after he leaves, he looks over and sees another suit. He thinks for a moment and then says, "maybe next time...". This is funny because in the next movie he works with Tony as War Machine in his other suit! Good little comedic way of foreshadowing something. But yeah, the humor helps make this movie fun. That's what a superhero movie should be. It should be like a comic book; which is action-packed, entertaining, interesting and funny.
The villain is this guy Obadiah (Jeff Bridges). He's a solid villain. He was Tony's dad's business partner and is Tony's second-in-command. He's a real scumbag and you don't like him at all. He's not a very memorable villain. Like you might not remember his name a couple months after you see the movie. And maybe that's because they don't give him a villain name. Regardless, Jeff Bridges gives a good performance as this guy.
Gwyneth Paltrow is good in this movie too as Pepper Potts. They do a good job of showing how her relationship with Tony starts to develop, which as we know they are dating going in to this third movie I will be seeing in a couple days.
The ending of this film is very good too. The way Tony Stark is talking at the press conference and then he just says "I am Iron Man." It ends then and you know there is still a lot to come from this series. I like to see the contrast between heroes that reveal their identities and heroes that keep it a secret. It's no fun when they're all the same! So I think this movie did a great job of handling the origin story as well as making a very good movie in the process.
So yeah, I don't know what else there really is to cover with this movie. I didn't want this to be too long, so I guess I'll wrap things up here. But again, this is the movie that really started it all. It's a great fun film. Not sure how interested you all are in reading a review of a film that came out five years ago, but I figured why not. Also this is still one of my first reviews so I'm hoping to keep getting better at this review thing.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading and as always, let me hear your thoughts!
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