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Description
The first Iron Man film was intense, right from the get go. When I dragged my wife to watch it with me, the first 20 minutes had her going “I was expecting light & fluffy comic book movie, this”

Jon Favreau hit it out of the park with his choices; it felt real, except for obvious lapses of judgement due to comic book aesthetics; like the Mark 1 was bulletproof, but had eye holes and a chest hole for the arc reactor. The story would have been much shorter had they aimed for his eyes or glowing target on his chest, but I accept these oversights to make the film resemble its comic book origins.

Favreau insisted on RDJ as the lead, I presume due to his similar backstory to Tony Stark. He helped pioneer a new way of doing wire work (which you can tell people are suspended at the waist) and made it look like RDJ was suspended by his heels and hands (by simply re jigging the wires… Which nobody had thought of before. Go back and watch The Matrix and Crouching Tiger to see the difference)

IM1 moves along at a very deliberate pace. Not the most visceral of films, but it needed to lay the groundwork for the entire MCU while telling a good story. This film tells a very dark and believable story, keeping that Marvel levity for a few laughs, but also never falls into silly territory.

Similar in many respects to Nolan’s Batman Begins (but with a few laughs, and a lot more CGI), this film was good enough to launch the most successful movie franchise in cinematic history.

Had the performances not all been top notch (Paul Bettany’s Jarvis was the perfect amount of sarcastic, Jeff Bridges was the perfect blend of comforting and intimidating, RDJ and Paltrow were perfect) and the CGI not been indistinguishable from the practical Iron Man suits, Marvel’s huge gamble (selling off their biggest franchises to Sony and Fox to fund Marvel Studios to launch the MCU) would not have paid off.

Thankfully it did.

8.9/10, A-

Description
The first Iron Man film was intense, right from the get go. When I dragged my wife to watch it with me, the first 20 minutes had her going “I was expecting light & fluffy comic book movie, this”

Jon Favreau hit it out of the park with his choices; it felt real, except for obvious lapses of judgement due to comic book aesthetics; like the Mark 1 was bulletproof, but had eye holes and a chest hole for the arc reactor. The story would have been much shorter had they aimed for his eyes or glowing target on his chest, but I accept these oversights to make the film resemble its comic book origins.

Favreau insisted on RDJ as the lead, I presume due to his similar backstory to Tony Stark. He helped pioneer a new way of doing wire work (which you can tell people are suspended at the waist) and made it look like RDJ was suspended by his heels and hands (by simply re jigging the wires… Which nobody had thought of before. Go back and watch The Matrix and Crouching Tiger to see the difference)

IM1 moves along at a very deliberate pace. Not the most visceral of films, but it needed to lay the groundwork for the entire MCU while telling a good story. This film tells a very dark and believable story, keeping that Marvel levity for a few laughs, but also never falls into silly territory.

Similar in many respects to Nolan’s Batman Begins (but with a few laughs, and a lot more CGI), this film was good enough to launch the most successful movie franchise in cinematic history.

Had the performances not all been top notch (Paul Bettany’s Jarvis was the perfect amount of sarcastic, Jeff Bridges was the perfect blend of comforting and intimidating, RDJ and Paltrow were perfect) and the CGI not been indistinguishable from the practical Iron Man suits, Marvel’s huge gamble (selling off their biggest franchises to Sony and Fox to fund Marvel Studios to launch the MCU) would not have paid off.

Thankfully it did.

8.9/10, A-