Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), owner of the Stark Industry, accompanied by his best friend and military buddy Rhodey (Terrence Howard), travels to a U.S. Air Force base in Afghanistan to sell the U.S. military on their newest weapon, the missile system, The Jericho. On the way back, they are attacked by the Ten Rings, a group of militants. Captured and seriously injured, Tony is rescued by Yinsen (Shaun Toub), who is also captured. The two are held in a small cave, where Tony is asked to make The Jericho in exchange for his freedom. In the process, Tony is puzzled to find out that the Ten Rings are armed with weapons belonging to his own company. With no way to help him, Tony relies on his own strength and Yinsen's help to escape from the cave, and the first generation of the Iron man Suit is born.
The story is simple and revolves around one main theme - Tony's survival of his death causes him to reflect on the meaning of weapons, which leads to a disagreement with his company partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges). Tony is then assisted by Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), the company secretary, to learn the truth about his capture.
Despite the mediocrity of the main plot, the movie was a hit because of its excellent subplots.
1: Design, Upgrade and Testing of Iron man suit
When Tony designed the first Iron man suit, it reminded me of the look of RoboCop (1987). The whole movie spends a lot of time on Tony's creation of the suit, and despite the various failures in the process, he continues to work on it until it is upgraded to the third generation of the suit for the final battle. Even though Tony is as smart as he is, it is more convincing to the audience because he has to go through the whole testing process in a gradual manner rather than in one go. In addition, when Tony puts up the mask, the eyes of the suit also flickers for a moment, which makes the audience feel more immersed in the scene.
In addition, Tony's studio is filled with advanced technology: stereoscopic projection, stereoscopic operation, AI robots, mechanical clothing... When all these cutting-edge technologies are combined together, it gives the audience a sense of "hipness", which only Transformers (2007) could give the audience a taste of before.
2: Tony and Pepper's Relationship
Only Pepper has access to Tony's studio at all times, a sign of Tony's trust in her, and she's the only one who doesn't question Tony's decisions when company associates and Tony's close friend do. Furthermore, Pepper has never disobeyed Stark's requests, and the only time she has refused was when Tony's life was at stake, but eventually she would give in. But is their relationship more than just boss and subordinate?
The relationship between the two is interesting. Tony, who is not afraid of anything, decides everything in a second, but in the scene on the rooftop, his hesitation is more than Pepper's. In addition, the change of title between the two is also interesting. In daily life and life and death situations, both of them refer to each other as Tony/Pepper, but in the beginning and the end of the movie, they change to Mr. Stark/Ms Potts, which is worthwhile for the audience to savor the idea that "ambiguity is always a pain in the ass". (No, ambiguity is one of the most interesting parts of love.)
In addition to the excellent plot, the most important factor in the movie's success: Robert Downey Jr.'s performance.
Tony is bossy, flamboyant, egotistical, confident, and has no regard for others. This is precisely what makes him so proud of not succumbing to terrorists; and during the experiment, he flies thousands of miles in the air and still has the audacity to not care about his own life. It is this attitude that captivates the audience.
Tony's frozen look when he realizes that he has been betrayed, and his aggressive gaze when he is with someone, are also very natural.
Two of the press conferences were also very impressive:
- In the opening press conference Tony sits at a podium and performs out of order, deciding without consulting anyone to shut down the company's most profitable business, the weapons division, because he knows that his weapons are in places he won't allow them to be, and have killed the people he was trying to protect, and that has fueled his arrogance.
- The press conference at the end where Tony bravely admits: I am Iron man, also highlights his fearlessness.
Robert's performance is what makes the audience believe that if Tony Stark were to appear in the world, this is what it would look like, and when an actor is able to play a role like no one else, it's a sign that the actor has succeeded.
There are quite a few famous scenes in the movie which are improvised by Robert (including 2 press conferences), and there is one scene makes the author feel quite funny: when Pepper connects the new Arc reactor (the reactor in the chest) to Tony's body, Tony suddenly screams out, and Pepper is really shocked!
While the movie is good in every way, there are some minor flaws in the plot, dialog, cinematography, and action design:
- After the first missile explodes in front of Tony at close range, his shirt and pants are nearly intact, and there are only a few scratches on his face.
- Ten Rings allow Tony and his assistant to build a highly destructive weapon on their own, and when they realize something is wrong, they don't even search the area.
- Tony's escape from the cave is unconvincing (Ten Rings have a lot of advanced weaponry but they don't use).
- Ten rings used small missiles when they invaded a small village with.
- Tony, after saving the village, was shot down by a tank (tanks are usually manually operated, and the space of the turret restricts the angle of fire, so basically the chance of hitting a high-speed flying object is extremely low, and the sensor system of the Iron man suit didn't give any warning, which is unconvincing).
- Major, shortly after asking Colonel what to do about the flying object that came out of nowhere, insisted on opening fire when the Colonel instructed him to pause the attack. (I thought soldiers were supposed to obey orders from their superiors.) And the Colonel didn't give a firm order to suspend the attack immediately after receiving Tony's call.
- When an arms dealer sells high-end weapons to terrorists, I'm afraid his own government will be the first to go after him.
The first movie in Marvel's Marvel Universe Phase One begins the tradition of post-credits scene: S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) makes a cameo appearance and hints the appearance of Avengers.
* Marvel's father Stan Lee (at the party, Tony passes by a man with his back to the camera) makes a cameo of about 3-5 seconds.
Recommendation: 8 (Both artistic and commercial, a must see)