“Iron Man” is a phenomenal film that took a big risk in starting something big and ended up creating one of the biggest franchises in movie history.
Welcome to “A Look Back With Oscar” where we take a dive into films from the 1970’s to the late 2000’s and see if they still hold up today.
With the release of “Black Widow” coming in just a few months, making this the first film in a new saga for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it would be the right time to look back at a film that started this universe, “Iron Man”, and see if it’s still an enjoyable film to watch or not.
The original idea to bring the armored avenger to the big screens was made by Universal Studios and would have featured a new science fiction take on the origin story and have M.O.D.O.K as the main villain.
Later on, the rights kept moving from Fox to New Line Cinema before going back to Marvel with Jon Favreau directing the film and Kevin Feige producing it.
The plot of the film is exceptional for being the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, also known as the MCU.
Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist Tony Stark is shown as an arrogant and selfish person with his company Stark Industries getting him money from selling weapons to people.
After presenting a missile to a couple of U.S soldiers in Afghanistan, he gets attacked and captured by a terrorist group called the “Ten Rings” who have been using Stark’s military-grade weapons to their advantage with their leader Raza who forces him to build a weapon.
Stark meets a doctor known as Yinsen who saves him from death by planting an electromagnet in his chest so that his heart won’t stop.
He teams up with him to build a suit that would help both of them escape.
Stark would eventually escape from them by fighting his way through with the suit he is wearing but sadly his imprisoned friend dies, sacrificing his life.
Now knowing that his weapons are being used for evil and killing innocent people, he makes it back home and announces that he is stopping production on all manufactured weapons.
He spends his time building newer versions of the previous suit he used to escape and uses it to put an end to the people who were using his weapons while also trying to be a better person.
While in the shadows, Obadiah Stane, a close friend of Tony’s family, had been selling Stark’s weapons to criminals worldwide and creates his suit to take down Stark and take his place as CEO.
The story holds up well for it being the first MCU film, as well as establishing the world that these characters are in while building lore that would later be a feature in future MCU films.
Though the villain could use some work as his goal didn’t make sense at first. Only after a few watches is where his plan makes more sense.
The acting is amazing, with Robert Downey Jr. giving the best performance out of the entire cast and it shows while watching that he was a great choice to play this role and drastically gets better when playing the character.
The cinematography and CGI still look good even in 2008.
The visuals still hold up and the Iron Man suits look spectacular, making it look like it would be made in modern times.
I love the direction that Jon Favreau took for the film and it paid off in the end as it helped create an expanding universe and memorable characters that stick with the audience to this very day.
“Iron Man” is an incredible film where many can see how it started this phenomenon giving some of the best characters in comic book films.
This film gets a four out of five. It still lives up to this day even for being the first film in its saga.
