Iron Man (2008)

 Genre: Action/Adventure        Time: 2h 6mins            Director: Jon Favreau

Quick Summary: When Tony Stark, an industrialist, is captured, he constructs a high-tech armoured suit to escape. Once he manages to escape, he decides to use his suit to fight against evil forces to save the world.

This is one of the most impressive superhero movies I have seen as of lately. It has charm and wit to it, all whilst being somewhat relatable and fulfilling action scenes.

I honestly believe Robert Downey Jr was born to play Iron man. He fits perfectly. Easily he is able to bring to life this witty, playfully smug engineering genius. His performance makes you believe he is Iron Man. Every line delivered has some form of substance to it even if it’s just playful banter. He brings life to the character and this film lays the foundation for the large imaginative universe of outlandish characters that it has in store for itself.

Once he has built the suit, Tony becomes a beacon of justice and a badass action star, the kind of hero that victims of terrorism need in a time of despair. It’s also great to see a hero that’s super smart and educated on technology because he can not only continue to update his powers, but also use his engineering knowledge to recover from tight predicaments, and I have to praise any kind of hero that empowers the gift of intellectualism.

Comedy is used a ton as Tony struggles to figure out how to harness the powers that he himself created. He creates the ability to fly, but that does not mean he can just go up, up and away. It takes lots of practice and even more failure before he is able to use the new armour without killing himself. Along the way, we get the best example of how to create a superhero from scratch, failures and all. I think it's a very good story of working yourself up from the bottom, and that things can and will be bumpy on the way. 

The action sequences are okay, nothing too remarkable and not too interesting. The fight at the end is typical as is the villain and the action should have been better realized. But the direction from Jon Favreau is very good and the film is solidly paced up until the third act of the film, where I felt it went downhill a tiny bit. The last fight felt very lacklustre and the CGI isn't too great.  

The final villain was a bit forgettable too, and his ideals get a bit mixed up in the whole theme of the film. 

The score is very forgettable as well, but the sound effects were great. They really amplified the action scenes and made the suit feel more real.

The romance plot wasn't too forced too in my opinion either, you could clearly see that feelings had developed beforehand, there was already chemistry between the pair. It flowed nicely and continued to blossom throughout the film, and it didn't get too overshadowed by the overarching theme.

The movie is an all-around good time and I highly recommend watching it as soon as possible if you have not done so. It’s a great starter movie for someone just starting to get into the genre.

8/10