Good evening, everyone. I have been thinking about doing an ongoing series of posts talking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or MCU, for short). Well, I am doing it now. As many of you should know, the MCU has been in existence for a while now. It has had its highs and lows in terms of how good the movies have been. I’ll be going over each of the movies and shows that Marvel Studios has released in detail (so spoilers ahead for every post). In terms of what order I will do, I’ll just do this in release order rather than chronological order because of the post-credit scenes. As a bonus, I will be highlighting the YouTube channel How It Should Have Ended, which has done almost every MCU project in their own style. With all of this out of the way, let’s start with the movie that started it all: “Iron Man”. Released on May 2, 2008 in the United States after years of development heck, “Iron Man” was directed by Jon Favreau and starred Robert Downey, Jr. As Tony Stark/Iron Man, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane, and Terrence Howard as Colonel James Rhodes. The film focuses on the origins of Tony Stark becoming Iron Man and overcoming the obstacles that he had to get through to be the hero that he would become for the MCU. Let’s get into detail on how the movie went down.
The first thing we see after the logos for Paramount and Marvel Studios pop up is some hummer trucks heading to an army base in Afghanistan. Tony Stark is talking with some soldiers in the truck. One of them asks for a picture with Tony and he says yes. Before the picture could be taken though (due to some hesitation by another guy), they get interrupted by a big explosion. Tony is instructed to stay in the car, but he gets out anyway and runs for cover. Even though he does find cover, he gets hit with an explosion from a Stark missile. After we see the title of the film revealed, we get a flashback to a day and a half earlier, when Tony wins an award for his work in Stark Industries. Tony is nowhere to be seen at the ceremony, and Obadiah Stane accepts the award for him. Stane says that Tony “is always working”, and then we see Tony “working” at the casino and Rhodes calls him out for it. Before he is able to leave, he gets interrupted by a news reporter named Christine (who is convinced to “sleep”with Stark at his home in Malibu). Christine wakes up and eventually leaves the house thanks to Pepper Potts getting a car for her. After we see Pepper and Tony talk for a bit, Tony leaves for Afghanistan with Rhodes. We then see Tony show everyone a demonstration of his missiles. The explosions still look great to this day. We then get back to what we saw a few minutes earlier. After a montage of surgeries due to some missile shards stuck in his chest, we see Tony laying down on a bed connected to an Arc Reactor, which helps keep the shards from killing him. A doctor named Yinsen (played by Shaun Toub) is in the room/cave with him. The terrorists (who work for the Ten Rings) then tell Tony to build the Jericho missile for them. He first refused, but is then forced to by them via almost drowning him. It turns out that they have some of his weapons. Tony agrees to build it for them. Later, he gets told by Yinsen to think about his legacy. Tony and Yinsen start working on something else. That something else involves building a miniature Arc Reactor using Palladium and steel (iron). He then starts building the Mark One suit that helps him escape the cave. The terrorists realize that something weird is going on and they interrogate him. Yinsen says that they’re working but they don’t believe him. Before Yinsen would get burned, Tony intervened and says that he needs him. After they leave, Tony makes the finishing touches on his suit from head to toe. Yinsen helps him get into the suit, but is interrupted by two of the terrorists. The door is then blown up and Yinsen gets to finish typing the commands for the suit. Yinsen gives Tony more time be causing a distraction via shooting randomly. Stark then emerges from the cave in his suit and starts beating up everyone in the cave hallways. Yinsen lays bleeding and eventually dies from his wounds (and sees his family in heaven). Before he dies, he tells Tony to not waste his life. Tony then goes outside and sets everyone and everything on fire before flying out of the explosions. He then hits the sand hard, destroying the suit. Most importantly, he survives and is rescued by Rhodes and his crew via helicopter (Tony throws a peace sign at them).
After Tony gets back home, he asks for a cheeseburger and holds a press conference. At the press conference, he tells everyone (while sitting down) that he is shutting down the weapons department of Stark Industries. Pepper gets to talk with Agent Phil Coulson (played by Clark Gregg), who works for SHIELD. Stark said that the reason why he is shutting down the weapons department is because he saw young Americans killed by his own company’s weapons. Stane is not pleased by that at all, as he is worried about the stock plummeting. Stark then shows Stane his chest Arc Reactor. Back at the house, Pepper sees Mad Money on CNN mentioning Stark Industries plummeting in stock. Pepper is then called into the garage and helps Tony remove the old wire from his chest. Pepper then puts in the new reactor in before Tony gets into cardiac arrest. Tony then tells her to destroy the old one, but she doesn’t do that (we’ll see why later). After that, we see Rhodes with Tony at the air base. Tony tells him that he is working on something big. After that, we see Tony at the house working on the thing while talking with Jarvis (voiced by Paul Bettany). Tony then tests the flight technology to hilarious results. After that blunder, we see more work on the suit and then another test. He tested the blaster hand before having some pizza in the living room with Stane and Potts. Tony tells him that he is being responsible with the company, even though Stane disagrees with him. Back in the garage, we see better results from the flight tests. He struggles for a bit, but he manages to survive without getting hurt. We then see Tony in the second suit flying around the city and over the water. Tony then flies higher and higher before the suit freezes up. Thankfully, he gets to fly before falling all the way down and gets back home. He then hilarious falls down through the road and through the piano before crashing into one of his cars. After he recovers and opens a gift from Pepper containing the old Arc Reactor with the message “Proof that Tony Stark has a Heart”, he works on a suit that has the iconic red and yellow colors. We then see Stark go to a gala event and run into Stan Lee dressed in a robe and interacting with a couple of ladies. Stark then dances and has a lengthy conversation with Potts at the gala. They almost kiss in the scene, but Pepper backs away and asks for a drink. Stark then runs into Christine, who calls him out on accountability and shows him pictures of the weapons being used for bad reasons. Stark then uses the red and yellow Mark 3 suit to fly to Afghanistan after seeing the news footage of the happenings in the villages. After he lands, he takes care of the terrorists and blows up the weapons. During this, he does the fantastic walk away from an exploding tank and flies back home. Meanwhile, he gets confused by the military and almost gets shot by them via air. He then calls Rhodes and lets him know that he is in the suit. He then saves a pilot whose parachute is jammed by getting the parachute engaged. After that, he got home safely.
We see Stane talk with the bad guys. He sees the suit that Tony used to get out of the cave and and takes it. After Stane leaves the tent with the suit acquired, we see Tony talk with Potts in the garage. Before Potts leaves the room, Tony tells her that he knows what he has to do. Potts then goes to the office and takes some data from a laptop into a flash drive. Among this data is Stane’s plan for the suit and a video of Stark with the terrorists. Stane walks into the room, which caused Pepper to hide the flash drive. She successfully gets the drive out without him noticing and gets out of the office with Coulson. Stane then yells at the scientist that Tony Stark was able to build his suit in a cave “with a box of scraps”. Stane then yanks the arc reactor from Stark’s chest. Before Tony dies out down in the garage, he is given the old arc reactor from the friendly claw and puts it in his chest. Meanwhile, Pepper and Agent Coulson try to stop Stane but to no avail (Pepper barely escaped from Stane’s suit). Tony gets his red and yellow suit on, but he is reminded by Jarvis that the old arc reactor won’t give him full shooting power. Before Pepper would get hurt, Tony saves her and then struggles against Stane. It didn’t help that Tony got run over by a car and is severely damaged in the fight. Tony escapes an explosion and then both suits fly up to the sky. Eventually, Stane’s suit freezes up and falls down. They both land over the big arc reactor. Stane then squeezes Tony’s suit before he escapes from that. Tony tells Pepper to blow the reactor up. Tony is then thrown to the glass ceiling and sees his Iron head broken. Stane then shoots the glass and almost sends Tony falling. Before Stane gets to kill Tony, Pepper pushes the button to send a beam up the ceiling that kills Stane and blows up the big reactor. Tony barely survives the resulting explosion. The final scene before the credits is Tony telling everyone at the press conference that he is Iron Man. After the credits, we see Tony walking into his house. Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson) tells him that he is part of a large universe that he doesn’t know yet. He also talks to him about the “Avengers Initiative” before the screen goes to black.
15 years later, I have to say that Iron Man holds up well. The stuff concerning the origins of Iron Man are well done. The character of Iron Man was created in the 1960s during the Cold War. Since the film was released in 2008, they modernized it to be in Afghanistan (which I didn’t mind). The first reveal of the Mark 1 suit with him taking care of the bad guys was an awesome scene. Later, there was the scene where he took care of the bad guys wearing the Mark 3 suit. That scene also had the famous walking away while the tank exploded. Robert Downey, Jr ended up being the perfect man for the role of Tony Stark. He had plenty of funny lines and quick-witted dialogue throughout the movie. He had some emotional moments as well, especially with Gwyneth Paltrow’s character Pepper Potts. Terrance Howard did a solid job as Rhodes, and he had some good scenes with RDJ. In addition to directing the movie, Jon Favreau made an appearance as Happy Hogan, who is one of Tony’s closest people in the comics and in the MCU. Jeff Bridges was solid as Obadiah Stane in this movie. The musical score composed by Ramin Djawadi was good in parts, including when Tony Stark was building his suits and trying them out. Other than the score, there were a couple of songs in the movie, with AC/DC’s Back in Black and a rendition of the Iron Man theme song from the 1960s by John O’Brien and Rick Boston. The visual effects hold up well 15 years later, especially the parts involving the suits flying and the explosions in the movie. What I appreciated the most was Tony Stark actually being fitted in the suits. The transition from Tony to the Mark 3 suit is still great to this day.
Even though “Iron Man” wasn’t a perfect movie, it was a great start for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Back when I watched it in May of 2008, I didn’t know that it was going to lead into something gigantic until I saw the post credits scene with Nick Fury. From that point on, I wanted to know what happened next. Before we continue with the adventures of Tony Stark, we have to go over “The Incredible Hulk” next. That will be posted soon. Thanks for reading this post.
(As promised, I’ll showcase the video by How it Should Have Ended on how they think Iron Man should have concluded. All of their videos are great stuff.)
(Also, there's this animated recap of the movie from Cas van de Pol's YouTube channel.)
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