How “Iron Man” Got Me Into Marvel Again

When I was a wee lad, I had no interest in Superhero movies. Sure, there was the occasional Batman and such, but back then, that was the only real exception. It was something about seeing movie trailers about these “Marvel Cinematic Universe” films on YouTube and tv over and over again that just made me not into the film genre because of how overhyped it felt.

But then my family, in the midst of their so-called “COVID-19 insanity”, purchased Disney+ for our entire family (mostly my little brother) to enjoy. That was when everything that I knew about Marvel changed forever.

The story goes: I was just sitting there, staring at the homepage of Disney+, pondering my Magic 8 ball, asking it “Should I watch Iron Man?” After the toy replied “without a doubt”, I decided to sacrifice my sanity to watch the movie.

Expecting some bad 2008 era movie with too much 2000’s era rock and surfer dudes, I was extremely surprised that this movie is, surprisingly, actually really great.

In case you need a refresher, Iron Man, based on the comic book superhero of the same name, is a 2008 movie that is known to be the first movie in the official Disney-Cannon Marvel cinematic universe. The movie stars Robert Downey Freaking Junior as Tony Stark: a playboy millionaire turned crime fighting robotic superhero.

The movie’s plot is very much an origin story of the invincible Iron Man. The movie begins with Mr. Stark presenting to a crowd of American army officials in Iraq what his father’s company, Stark Industries, specializes in: NUCLEAR WARFARE, and already, just a few minutes into the movie we can just see what a total badass of an actor Robert Downey Freaking Junior really is. Like literally, he just stands there holding his hands out like he's a savior while seven hundred explosions cause an entire mountain to fall down.

Unfortunately, for him, during the course of the next few 30 mins in the movie, Mr. Stark realizes his mistakes. As a gang known as the Ten Rings (The gang name being what I believe is a subtle foreshadowing to the most recent Marvel movie: Shang Chi) captures Tony and forces him to build the same nuke for their own evil schemes.

But, despite torture, Tony Stark decided to do something a bit different than the enemies were initially expecting, the first thing he did was create an artificial heart using the energy from his own nukes. He had to do this, due to a piece of shrapnel stuck inside his heart which got in there due to a bomb blast during his kidnapping.

And the next thing he did was create a huge suit of armor known as Iron Man Mark 1. After both projects were complete, Tony escaped the enemies base and destroyed all of the weapons they had.

After that incident, Mr. Stark decided to change himself and stop all production on nuclear weapons by Stark Industries. He instead decided to work on his Iron Man suits and improve them even more. The next few minutes of the movie show Mr. Stark developing the next Iron Man suits and hilariously testing them out. In one crazy part in the middle of the movie, Stark uses his suit to travel back to Iraq to stop an enemy invasion in a small town, only to be chased by American fighter jets a second later.

Naturally, a lot of people are not ok with Mr. Stark’s decisions. Even his own company is concerned about all this. Including one of his coworkers, Obadiah Stane (Played by Jeff Bridges). Now, I don't want to spoil the ending too much but I will say that Mr. Stane eventually copies the Mark 1 Iron Man armor and creates his own armor known as Iron Monger to fight Iron Man in an epic final battle.

This movie is an absolute blast! The writing is surprisingly superb and funny at times, the CGI is impressive for 2008 standards and of course, Robert Downey Freaking Junior. I am very happy to say that this movie was good enough to make me watch the other Disney-Endorsed Marvel films. Basically saying, Iron Man did the impossible for me: it got me into Marvel again.

I proudly rate this film a solid 10/10! Yes, you heard me right a full on ten. I highly recommend that you watch this movie. It’s available on Disney+.