Iron ManThis movie, at least in my opinion, is not nearly as good as everyone says it is. It's not really bad or anything, but story-wise, it's fairly simplistic.
For all five of you reading this who don't know, Tony Stark basically becomes Iron Man when he gets captured by terrorists who want him to build missiles and stuff for them. In the process of being captured, there's an explosion that sends shrapnel into his chest, so he has a electromagnet thing in his chest that stops the shrapnel from getting to his heart. Instead of doing what the terrorists want, he makes a suit of armor powered by his electromagnet whatever to wear and just barely escapes alive. Then, he perfects the armor in his lab, his friend Obidiah Stane turns out to be a generic bad guy who wants Tony's armor for himself, Tony stops him, and then at the end just flat-out reveals to the public that he's Iron Man.
As far as the story goes, it starts really good, but then by the time Tony creates the finished Iron Man suit, bright red and all, everything starts to become really predictable. I honestly don't get when people say that they like Obidiah Stane as a villain. He's really dull and generic, and half the time it feels like the movie knows it.
Of course, the one area where the praise is justified is with Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark. He is consistently amazing and I'm happy to say that there has never been a boring scene with him in all of these movies. He keeps a perfect balance between serious and funny, more often than not using his humor and witty dialogue to mask his fears and emotions.
Overall, this was a decent start. It isn't amazing like everybody says, but it's not bad. The action scenes are really good, and the Iron Man armor in this movie looks fantastic. It moves very realistically, and it actually feels like it has weight.
Iron Man 2This is the one movie in the trilogy I just don't like. It's a great popcorn movie, but the second I start putting any thought into it everything just falls apart.
In this movie, Tony Stark finds out that the magnet in his chest that is keeping the shrapnel away from his heart is also slowly killing him, and while he tries to find a way to save himself, a villain named Ivan Vanko teams up with Justin Hammer to crush puny Stark like sparrow's egg between thighs. Also, Tony Stark's buddy, James Rhodes, at one point steals a gray Iron Man suit and becomes the War Machine.
This movie may have great special effects and acting, but a lot of the other things in the movie are just not good. Tony Stark is dying. Great, that could lead to some interesting stories. What happens? Tony goofs off like an idiot, wears his Iron Man suit to his own birthday party, then fights his best friend, and then when he loses, he flies over to a donut shop WHILE STILL WEARING THE IRON MAN SUIT, and then Nick Fury and Black Widow show up because Marvel needs to sell the Avengers. Seriously, why was Black Widow in this movie? The only relatively important thing that she does is infiltrate a facility and then hack into a computer so that Rhodey can regain control over the War Machine armor, which Stark could have very easily done on his own.
All of this stuff is such a shame, too, because Jon Favreau and crew really wanted to make a great movie that would take a deeper dive into the mind of Tony Stark, but Marvel simply wanted an advert for the Avengers, so most of the really awesome stuff from the movie ended up on the cutting room floor. This movie suffers the same problem as Thor; it feels less like a movie and more like a commercial.
Overall, this film is just okay. If you have a Saturday night and you're really bored, I'd maybe suggest this, but if you want something to really think about, check out the next film.
Iron Man 3Wow, this film is actually really good! Marvel had two movies to try, and this time they really got it.
It's been a year or two since Tony Stark's near-death experience in the Avengers, and now he's changed for the worse. He's often being plagued with anxiety attacks and he keeps working in his lab on all sorts of Iron Man suits in the hopes that he can use all of them to protect to people he loves, when suddenly a terrorist named the Mandarin "attacks" all sorts of random places around the world while trying his hardest to destroy Tony's life in every way possible. Then, *spoiler alert* the Mandarin is revealed to actually be a misdirection, a "target" for Iron Man to shoot, so to speak. It was actually Aldrich Killian, a man from Tony's pre-Iron Man days that Tony humiliated by telling him that he was going to meet with him on the rooftop of a convention building and then not showing up. Now, Tony has to team up with Rhodey, find Killian, and stop him before he murders the president.
This movie is amazing. All of the action scenes are well shot, choreographed and directed, and the Iron Man suit looks better than ever. I really like the idea of Tony having frequent anxiety attacks because of what happened at the end of the Avengers, as it definitely makes that movie seem a lot better. When I first watched the Avengers, I was kind of confused as to why Tony just shrugged off the fact that he almost died, but now it makes perfect sense. It makes sense that Tony would seclude himself and build a small army of Iron Man suits to combat any forces that threat Pepper or anyone else he loves. Of course, he's still hilarious as usual, but it's a little more toned down and his constant sarcasm isn't obnoxious.
There's just a lot to love about this movie. The Iron Man suits are really creative this time around, and you would think that the Mark 42 suit would get really overused and overpowered, but it's actually utilized in the action scenes very well. First it gets attached to Tony, then Tony attaches it to Pepper when Killian's men blow up the mansion, and then Tony attaches it to Killian at the end and has the suit blow up to try and kill him. Then there's the ending, where all of the suits Tony has been building get sent to the oil rig to fight alongside him, which the more I think about it doesn't really work very well to conclude the story. Yes, it's really awesome, but I think it would have resolved Tony's problem by having Killian gain control over all the other Iron Man suits except for Mark 42, and have Tony try to fight them, as it would definitely be an interesting kind of wake-up call for him to see the all of the suits he build to protect his loved ones be reset to do the exact opposite. It's not that big of a deal, but it definitely would improve the final act of the film.
Overall, this was the first Iron Man movie I saw that was really good. The first two weren't exactly bad, but they were only really enjoyable on a base level. They didn't make me think quite like Iron Man 3 did.
I hope you all enjoyed this first part of my Maddening Marvel Marathon...whatever, and if you have suggestions for movies I can review after all this is over, leave a comment down below. What did you guys think of these movies?
Stay tuned for Iron Man: Chipwrecked.
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