Marvel Cinematic Universe: IRON MAN

In eager anticipation of Marvel Studios' AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, I'm re-watching every entry in the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" (MCU) thus far, from IRON MAN to GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, and then sharing my views on each one as a film and within the context of the MCU and movie landscape.  At the end of each essay is a list of "Easter eggs" that connect the pertinent film to other films in the wider MCU, and a "Top 5" of the best five parts (a scene, concept, actor, character, etc.) in each movie.  Without further ado, we begin with the one that started it all, 2008's IRON MAN.  [Please note, these reviews contain spoilers].

IRON MAN
Released 2 May 2008
Directed by Jon Favreau
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, Leslie Bibb, Shaun Toub, Faran Tahir, Clark Gregg, Bill Smitrovich, Sayed Badreya, Paul Bettany (voice), Jon Favreau
Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content.
126 minutes 
Merit: 3.5/4
Billionaire industrialist and genius inventor Tony Stark is kidnapped and forced to build a devastating weapon.  Instead, using his intelligence and ingenuity, he builds a high-tech suit of armor and escapes captivity.  When he uncovers a nefarious plot with global implications, he dons his powerful armor and vows to protect the world as Iron Man. [Synopsis from "Marvel Cinematic Universe - Phase One: Avengers Assembled" Blu-ray box set]

Marvel Studios, the film division of Marvel Entertainment Group, known as a comic books publisher, had been in the film business for a while, mainly producing straight-to-video animation.  In 1998, the first feature film licensed by Marvel Studios, BLADE, was released, a moderated success, soon followed up by 2000's X-MEN.  In 2002, the modern era of superhero blockbusters was in full swing with the massive success of a long-gestating production, SPIDER-MAN.  Since then, superheroes have been providing reliable box office success each summer.  Until 2008 however, all Marvel films had been co-productions with established film studios that had bought the film rights to many of Marvel's best-known properties.
"The Invincible Iron Man," a wealthy industrialist who dons a super powerful suit of weaponized armor to fight international threats, namely Communism, first appeared in Marvel's Tales of Suspense #39 in March 1963.  With the end of the Cold War, Iron Man went on to combat terrorist threats and corporate criminals.  Plans to make an Iron Man film began as early as 1990, following the blockbuster success of BATMAN in 1989.  Throughout the 90s, actors like Nicolas Cage and Tom Cruise expressed interest in playing the character, and filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Joss Whedon and Nick Cassavetes were approached to direct as the film rights passed from Universal to 20th Century Fox to New Line Cinema.  Finally in 2005, the rights reverted back to Marvel.  Although not quite on the level of popularity shared by Spider-Man or the Hulk, Iron Man was one of the last really well-known Marvel characters not yet adapted to film, so Marvel Studios resolved to make IRON MAN their first independently-produced feature film.  With a budget of $140 million, about average for a superhero film, which usually come in at about $150 million, IRON MAN would be produced solely by Marvel Studios, overseen by Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios.  Paramount Pictures would act only as a distributor of the film.
Jon Favreau was an unconventional choice for director.  He'd directed three films at the time; a low-budget 2001 independent crime-comedy co-starring himself alongside his friend Vince Vaughn, called MADE, the highly-successful Christmas-themed family comedy ELF in 2003, and the family fantasy-adventure ZATHURA, which was a box office failure in 2005.  Also known as a character actor (often appearing in his own films), Favreau had appeared in the divisive 2003 Marvel superhero film DAREDEVIL, where he met IRON MAN co-producer Avi Arad.  Favreau described his approach to IRON MAN as if "Robert Altman directed SUPERMAN," placing it in a relatively grounded real-world setting.

Actor Robert Downey, Jr. was in the process of attempting a comeback after his once-promising career had come to a screeching halt due to drug and alcohol addictions.  The son of underground filmmaker Robert Downey, Sr., he had earned raves as a young leading man in the late 80s and early 90s, culminating in an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor as the eponymous character in Richard Attenborough's 1992 biopic, CHAPLIN.  But for several years during the latter half of the 90s and into the 2000s, Downey was arrested multiple times on drug-related charges, spent time in rehab, relapsed and would spend more time in rehab over the course of five years.  Following rehab, Downey began appearing mainly in independent fare (given a critical boost from Mel Gibson, who produced THE SINGING DETECTIVE in 2003, starring Downey), with roles in low-key but critically-acclaimed films like GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK and KISS KISS BANG BANG.  In 2007, Downey played a supporting role in David Fincher's ZODIAC, and the same year was cast in IRON MAN as Tony Stark/Iron Man.  In explaining his reasoning, in part, for casting Doweny, Favreau said, "The best and worst moments of Robert's life have been in the public eye. He had to find an inner balance to overcome obstacles that went far beyond his career. That's Tony Stark."
Downey, in fact, proves to be IRON MAN's most integral ingredient, playing the bad boy superhero who carries a veneer of glib coolness, with a brooding sincerity at his core.  Shooting began without a finished script (but with a general outline of the scenes and set-pieces), and Downey created much of his own dialogue, experimenting with various options.  There's a sharp wit to the dialogue throughout the film, the best of it coming from Downey, where everyone is giving it all they've got, and every other conversation is a classic example of "witty repartee."
While in his original comic book origin story Stark was captured by the Viet Cong in 1960s Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  The Vietnamese want Stark to build weapons for them, but instead he builds an Iron Man suit prototype which he uses to fight and escape his captors.  A hero very much of the Cold War era, Iron Man began as a very anti-Communist hero with a pro-Vietnam War bent, which was changed soon after public opinion of that war took a nosedive.  As a result the character was gradually modified into someone more complex, with stories that explored the political and moral implications of his actions.  For the film, which it was decided would take place in a contemporary setting, post-9/11, Iron Man's origins were transported to the Middle East, where Iron Man's old Communist foes, the Ten Rings, appear as a terrorist organization in the vein of Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State.  The movie makes no direct comment on the politics of war in the Middle East, focusing instead on Stark's journey, from a consummate playboy and military industrialist with a stone-cold heart, to discovering that the world operating around him is not as simple as he once thought.

Later in the summer of IRON MAN's release in 2008, another one of the all-time great superhero films, THE DARK KNIGHT, became a colossal hit.  Both films took colorful comic book characters and placed them in a real-world context, exploring the moral complexities of a superhero within a modern politics and terrorism, but while THE DARK KNIGHT was a characteristically dark, gritty crime saga with approximately four or five small jokes spread across an epic 150-minute running time, IRON MAN took a more jovial, "rock-and-roll" route.  That's not at all to say that IRON MAN avoids the brutality of some of its true-life-inspired subjects, but it doesn't dwell or brood on them, for better or worse.  Iron Man is a cool hero, executing violent extremists with laser precision, and quipping his way through off-the-cuff social interactions.  THE DARK KNIGHT is the London Symphony Orchestra, but Iron Man is AC/DC.
IRON MAN began production as a stand-alone film.  As a superhero film, the possibility of a sequels was obviously on the table if the first one was a success, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), as it came to be called, was not yet intended.  As a tease, and to set up the possibility of the MCU as the film neared completion however, a super-secret cameo was included following the credits, only after the film's general release, not appearing in any advance screenings.  Samuel L. Jackson, whose specific likeness had been used for the character in Marvel Comics since 2002, appears as Nick Fury, head of the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.), who brings an offer to Stark regarding the "Avengers Initiative."  In a meta moment, Fury actually tells Stark, "You've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet."  If the stars aligned for Marvel though, Stark, and moviegoers, would get to know it, in one of the most ambitious film franchises ever attempted.

Easter Eggs to Look For:

• Foreshadowing to MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS: S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) makes a post-credits cameo to suggest Iron Man's involvement in the "Avengers Initiative".
• Foreshadowing to IRON MAN 3: The terrorist organization that holds Tony Stark captive in Afghanistan is called the "Ten Rings", a reference to Iron Man's archenemy in the comics, the Mandarin (who later makes something of an appearance in IRON MAN 3), noted for his ten rings, one for each finger, from which he derives his supernatural abilities.
• Foreshadowing to MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS: S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) makes multiple appearances throughout the film attempting to schedule a debriefing with Tony Stark on behalf of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, aka S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Foreshadowing to IRON MAN 2: As Tony Stark flies away to stop Obadiah Stane, aka Iron Monger, Lt. Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Terence Howard) turns to see an unpainted Iron Man suit hanging from chains and says, "Next time, baby," in reference to Rhodey later becoming War Machine in IRON MAN 2.
• Reference to CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER: A partial Captain America shield can be glimpsed in the background on a shelf while Stark is struggling to remove his battle-worn armor after returning from his first mission.

Top Five of IRON MAN

1. Robert Downey, Jr.- It's hard to see what Marvel could possibly do with Iron Man once Robert Downey, Jr. retires from the franchise.  He is Iron Man.
2. "I am Iron Man"- In a press conference addressing the events of the movie's climactic battle between Tony Stark/Iron Man and Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger, Stark is given a prepared statement.  "The truth is..." he begins, then drops the cards, announcing, "I am Iron Man" followed by the familiar strains of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" as the spectacularly designed credits roll.
3. Iron Man Explodes a Tank- Flying in over the village of Gulmera, Afghanistan, occupied by terrorists using Stark Industries weapons, Iron Man liberates the village and destroys the weapons stores, but is shot down by a tank.  Getting back up, Iron Man faces off the tank which fires another shell at him.  Iron Man casually dodges the shell and returns his own, turning and walking away from the explosion in classic action movie fashion.
4. Shaun Toub- Often overlooked is the small but brilliant, sensitive and humorous performance by Iranian actor Shaun Toub as Yinsen, the man who is imprisoned by the Ten Rings with Stark and performs an operation to save Tony's life.  The emotional anchor of Tony Stark's journey lies in Yinsen's death, a bittersweet but brief moment in the middle of an action set-piece.
5. Attack on the "Funvee"-The opening sequence is ruthlessly efficient in establishing the character of Tony Stark, who responds to the question of whether he really went "12 for 12" with the previous year's Maxim cover models with "Yes and no, March and I had a scheduling conflict, but fortunately the Christmas cover was twins".  This is followed up by an attack on the Humvee in which Stark is riding, an atypically realistic (so far as I can) firefight for a comic book movie that pumps the intensity to maximum at the start.

Images via Marvel Studios