Rating: 9/10
After being kidnapped by terrorists, billionaire playboy, Tony Stark, invents an Iron Man suit in order to escape from his captors. Once he learns that it’s weapons from his company that they’re using he tries to shut down his company.
This was the film that started it all and without it, we wouldn’t have anything else in the MCU. And I don’t just mean that if this didn’t succeed Marvel would have sold all the properties they still had control over and lost everything, but it also started many of the tropes that kind of ruined Superhero movies for a little bit. For one, the “need the villain to just be trying to steal the heroes powers” motif. I mean, it does work here and it’s great, but someone at Disney I think saw that it worked and then insisted that every other origin movie they did had the exact same plot when it came to the villain. This isn’t really this film’s fault, but it was the one that started this problem.
This film is less about fighting bad guys and more about showing the story of Tony, how he came from money, but after being kidnapped by terrorists he sees that his company needs to change. When his former friend wants to keep things the same and is willing to kill to do so, it’s a major part of the movie but it’s not the driving force of the film. Something that they kind of forget in some of the upcoming MCU films, that they forget that it’s not about the action or special effects but really it’s about the characters.
SCORING:
+10: Original, fun, and unique, that is until the MCU just kept copying it over and over again…
-1: A little sluggish right in the middle of the film. The second act drags, though it’s not without its moments.
