Iron Man (2008)

Last weekend, I watched the movie Iron Man. I must tell you that it was such a great movie to watch. Basically it is an action movie, but they add some comedic elements so naturally that you would think that it was just, well…natural… :p

Anyway here’s the synopsis and story in the movie. Be warned though, as it may contains spoiler.

The movie starts with Anthony “Tony” Stark in a hum-vee going through a field somewhere in Afghanistan. Suddenly they are being attacked by unknown forces, and Tony sees his own missile attacking them. The movie then goes back to 36 hours before, where the multi billionaire Tony Stark was having fun in his daily life. Tony is a multi billionaire with a jet set lifestyle, having fun in every day in his life, spending his time going with his private jet and surrounded by many girls. He is a genius at engineering and graduated from MIT at the age of 17. He returned to continue his father footsteps and built the Stark Industries, specializes in military weaponry. To tell you the truth, I like him very much because his life seems so real to me (a multi billionaire couldn’t have a good normal polite life as Bruce Wayne did, and I would likely be like Tony Stark if I was a multi billionaire). He then went to Afghanistan to give presentation about his new missile, Jericho.

Going back after the attack somewhere in Afghanistan, Tony was captured and held hostage. Yinsen, a fellow hostage and an engineer like him helped Tony there. There are many shrapnel that surrounds Tony’s heart, thus Yinsen help Tony made a magnet like reactor to put in his chest to help prevent the shrapnel entering his heart. The captor wanted Tony to built him Jericho missile. And after some hesitation, Tony finally agreed to made it because he saw his own missiles and weaponry being used by the terrorist there. The plan was to make a suit of armor that would help them to escape. After succeeding to built it, Tony escaped the hostage but with the cost of Yinsen’s life.

Back at his usual daily life, Tony stated he would close the weapon department in his industries. However, Obadiah, his mentor and his father’s best friend tried to convince Tony not to close it. Meanwhile back at his house, Tony began to build the Iron Man suit, codename Mark II (his first suit in Afghanistan was Mark I and it was destroyed when he tried to fly with it the first time and landed not too far). At the same time, the same terrorist group managed to recover the Mark I costume. Tony also built a new heart reactor and replaced his old one, giving the old one to Peppers. After many adjustments (and comedies), finally he managed to build the Mark III suit (the official Iron Man suit), and finally knew that Obadiah wanted to keep producing weaponry for the sake of money. Peppers, who knew that Obadiah ordered the terrorists to capture Tony and that Obadiah had the Mark I costume rebuilt, was being interviewed with S.H.I.E.L.D at the time (and thus revealing Obe’s true intentions) and Obadiah took the active heart reactor from Tony’s chest for activating his Mark I suit.

Barely alive, Tony crawled to his workshop and reached for the old reactor Peppers give as a token of gratitude to him. Rhodes then found him just after he managed to install his reactor, and helped him to wear his Iron Man suit (and Rhodes looked to the Mark II suit, which was colorless and all-metal like the War Machine costume, noting that in future installments of the movie, there might be War Machine). Finally Tony confronts Obadiah and after a hard fight, he uses almost all of his reactor energy to defeat him (I would not spoil much of the fight here, you got to watch it by yourself).

And Tony is still alive, safe and sound. S.H.I.E.L.D agents have prepared an alibi for him at the fighting scene, but Tony chose to tell the world that he is indeed Iron Man.

But wait! After the ending credits, we could see S.H.I.E.L.D head operative Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson, as in the newest comics) talk to Tony about using his Stark Tower as base of operations. I actually didn’t know this before and I left the cinema at the middle of the credits…poor me…

Anyway, I would give the rating of 9 out of 10 to this movie. It clearly redefines the action comedy genre, and I think that’s just how a movie should be made. The movie doesn’t bragging about the power or greatness of the Iron Man, but more to his humane side. The Iron Man itself only appeared at almost the middle of the movie. And I’d say that it gives a fresh breeze to action movies.

By the way, if you liked Robert Downey Jr. here (the actor who played Tony Stark), he will be appearing in the movie The Incredible Hulk, a sequel to 2003 film Hulk as a cameo (and still as Tony Stark). This could indicate that an Avengers movie would be made (which I really want to see later, hopefully). Now after reading this review, would you watch Iron Man? I think it’s totally worth it. See you at the cinema ten.. :p