Iron Man

The world changed in 2008. Before 2008 we'd been given superhero movies, even superhero franchises, and some of them were good. The first two parts of the Spiderman trilogy. The beginnings of The Dark Knight trilogy. A couple of good Superman and Batman movies in the 80's. X-Men and X2. So we knew it was possible to make a good superhero movie. X-Men and Batman Begins even proved to us that superhero movies could be good and not filled to the brim with camp. So 2008 was hardly the first time we got part 1 of a great superhero series.

But it was the first time we realized that so much more was possible than a series focused around a single tentpole character.


It's no secret that without the massive commercial and critical success of Iron Man, and the fact that they banked so heavily on an interconnected superhero cinematic universe right from the beginning, that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) probably just wouldn't have happened. Iron Man was so good, in fact, that we were all able to pretend that The Incredible Hulk never happened, and move on to increasingly bigger things as the years passed. Now we are barreling toward the single biggest movie event in the history of Hollywood with Avengers: Infinity War, which will wrap up more than a decade of some of the most lucrative movie-making ever, and all of that success is directly due to Iron Man.

And yes, every other production studio in Hollywood is desperately trying to cash in on their own cinematic universe, resulting in an even more massive rush of terrible reboots and adaptations nobody was asking for than we probably would have otherwise had. But it's really not fair to blame the excellent work behind Iron Man for the stupidity of movie producers the world over. Iron Man gave us the MCU. All that other crap is on the heads of the people who made it.

So, how exactly did Iron Man manage to pull this off, even dragging the dead carcass of a Hulk movie along with it? I mean, there are a lot of reasons. The movie is mechanically well made and feels more like a movie than a comic-book adaptation. They didn't try to sell us any gimmicks, going so far as to explain why the Iron Man suit looked the way it did. They grounded us in realism as much as possible, and committed to the blatantly impossible stuff with a combination of confidence and humor that worked well to sell the whole package to the main viewing public. They also kept the action lightweight and punchy, and the tone as light as possible while dealing with stuff like betrayal, terrorism, and black market arms dealing.

They also weren't afraid to deal with stuff like terrorism, betrayal, and black market arms dealing. Especially when the movie was released, that was pertinent, grounding stuff.

The plot is simple, as is the story. The events of the movie are somewhat predictable (though the first attack on the convoy being followed by a flashback was a good use of some storytelling tomfoolery to hook interest early but still give us all the details we needed), and Tony's character arc is basic, but they're both executed well. Using a standard formula in a movie intended to be widely enjoyed no matter your background and personality is very common, and as long as they execute it in an entertaining way, it's a win for viewers. The special effects were also great, using a good mix of practical effects and CGI that honestly really holds up well even compared to brand new MCU films, and while I know the whole "inside of Iron Man's helmet" view was a concession to allow the producers to feature the Iron Man mask as much as possible while still fulfilling contract obligations, it turned out to be a pretty awesome and iconic thing that's already being copied.

And speaking of contract obligations, let's go ahead and finish with this. Many, many things were done well in the production of Iron Man, but whatever the casting director was paid, it wasn't enough. Because as I said in the list, Robert Downey Jr. is the most perfect casting of an actor to an existing fictional character since J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. Which honestly makes that the second best casting of that nature, just, ever. RDJ brought with him ridiculous contract stipulations (my face has to be in this much of the movie) and a huge price (there's a reason you'll never see him in an MCU tv show), but he also brought life to Tony Stark in such a flawless way. He defined the character of Tony Stark, and audiences everywhere vocally agreed that he was just an absolute party to watch on screen. Would Iron Man have been good if a slightly lesser actor had been cast as Tony? Probably. Would it have been as good? Almost certainly not.

So there you have it. The daddy of the MCU, and the genesis of highly interconnected movie universes everywhere. While it's not my favorite by a long shot, there's certainly a lot of appreciation for all the awesome movies I'll be talking about from here on that indirectly owe their existence to Iron Man.

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