Iron Man: Review By Big Mike

Iron Man was the The Dark Knights shadow. Iron Man was released 2 months before The Dark Knight, but was it as successful? No. Iron Man grossed $318, 298, 180 (as of September 28 2008). The Dark Knight grossed $533,316,061 (as of March 1 2009). If I can remember well, after The Dark Knight came out I couldn't remember anything about Iron Man. The Dark Knight is one of my favorite movies of all-time and it should've won the Best Picture award instead of "Slumdog Millionaire." But what about Iron Man? No one really cared much for it, for we were all too amazed by The Dark Knight. I saw The Dark Knight about. . .4 times in the theater and I just absolutely loved it. I saw Iron Man once. The Dark Knight is no doubt just a little bit better but Iron Man started something, it started the combination of future marvel superheros colliding into one film and I don't think people really take note of that. Honestly I don't like it. But the film in which they all star in (The Avengers) I know, will be epic.

Iron Man revolves around the life of Tony Stark. He inherited his dad's weapons manufacturing company, Stark Industries. He is the single best weapons supplier and he doesn't really care. He gambles and acts immature. But after a weapons showing of his new creation, "The Jericho," in Iraq, he is attacked and many pieces of metal shrapnel goes into his chest. His attackers kidnap him and in order to save him, they place some sort of battery in his chest that is his key to life. He is forced to make the "Jericho," for his captors but instead creates a weaponized iron suite and breaks out of his capture and is rescued by his friend, Rhodey. When returning to the U.S. he announces that his company will stop making weapons and makes a new version of the iron suite he made in Iraq. He makes it more high-tech and uses it for justice. I thought the story was pretty unique for being based off a comic book. I don't read comic books nor have I ever and Iron Man is the first great superhero film that I witnessed that wasn't named Spiderman. I enjoyed the story very much, the writers really went above and beyond on this one.

Robert Downey Jr. Is perfect in his role of Tony Stark. He portrays his character with so much sarcasm which makes Robert Downey so good in humorous action films. He is also good at being serious. He has a great comedic action star that I look forward seeing more from. Terrence Howard also stars in Iron Man, as Rhodey and damn does he do a good job! He has a great facial reaction to things. Instead of having somewhat of a straight face and reacting with action, Terrence Howard reacts with both facial expressions and action which makes him a good actor. I believe that Terrence Howard is very underrated, he shouldn't have been replaced by Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2. Don Cheadle in my mind is a bad actor, the only movies I liked him in was the Ocean series. If Terrence Howard was in Iron Man 2 instead of Don Cheadle, I believe the movie would have been a little bit better, for Iron Man 2 was terrible. The veteran actor Jeff Bridges also starred in this film, and he didn't do too bad. I'm not a huge fan of him although I know he's very good as an actor. He did a good job at portraying his..."mysterious" and aggressive character, Obadiah Stone, Tony's right hand man. Pepper Potts who is Tony's assistant is played by Gwyneth Patrow and she did a very excellent job. She is constantly frustrated by her bosses actions, being Iron Man disturbs her which makes her show her emotional side and falls for him. She did a good job at showing that. The whole cast was great and very enjoyable to watch.

The funny Jon Favreau directed Iron Man and he does a perfect job. He has played many cameos in movies and TV shows and he does a good job at that as he did in Iron Man. He directed two children's movies before directing Iron Man. Elf and Zathura: A Space Adventure. Elf is one of the most entertaining films I've ever seen, I can watch it over and over again. Zathura not as much.

Iron Man will always be knowned as Jon Favreau's best film in my mind. He does a good job at action scenes, capturing the good angles and lighting. He really surprised me by this for some reason, but he made those so. . .extrodinary perhaps? Maybe too much but still, he did a very good job.

The visuals could have been better but were still good. Some scenes were extremely fake but other scenes made up for it. But hey, it's hard to make a movie where you make a flying lethal iron suite perfect. I thought it was funny how they made Jeff Bridges look like a pedophile. I don't know why but I laughed really hard seeing him and I thought they made him look too evil in the beginning. Sometimes I could tell who is the bad guy by how they look and I just knew Jeff Bridges character was. They did a bad job at that. The cinematography was good, Matthew Libatique did the cinematography and I thought he did an ok job. The action scenes although some didn't look real, they were portrayed perfectly.

Iron Man is definitely one of my favorite movies. And definitely should be seen from everybody or at least everyone with a great taste in movies. It is a good popcorn action flick. I've seen Iron Man 5 times since it came out on DVD and although that might not be much, it's "enough" for being a favorite. There is no certain limit of seeing a movie to be a favorite but since it is one of my favorites, it means I have seen it a lot.

In the end, 4.5 = very good. And if you havent seen it yet then you're crazy.