Phase 1 Revisited: Iron Man

In which I revisit a previously explored topic with fresh eyes and an open mind.

We're starting to get down to the wire now.  Avengers: Age of Ultron's release is set for May 1st, giving us only a few weeks to go before it kicks off the summer blockbuster season.  But before we rush off to the theaters to see how Phase 2 opts to wind down, I thought that it would be worthwhile to look back on how Phase 1 set fire to the very idea of the modern movie franchise.  Between now and May 1st, I will post reviews of all six of Marvel's Phase 1 movies, beginning with the one that started it all.

When self-described "genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist" Tony Stark is abducted by the the Ten Rings in Afghanistan, he undergoes a profound transformation.  Realizing that "young Americans [are being] killed by the very weapons [he] created to defend [...] them," he invents a robotic armor that transforms him into the 21st century's first superhero: Iron Man.  But when his double-dealing CEO gets a hold of his designs, Stark must sacrifice everything in order to save the world from himself.

At its core, Iron Man is about an industrialist and, ultimately, war profiteer coming to terms with his sanguine legacy, developing a social conscience and taking personal responsibility for a lifetime of geopolitical indifference.  If Nolan's Batman trilogy implied that upper class altruism was the key to social reform, Iron Man posits that it's ultimately a double-edged sword: as prone to benefiting society as it is to impairing it.

After all, it was Tony's callousness in Bern that eventually gave birth to the Ten Rings, and the Mandarin, to begin with.  Even though Stark invented a seemingly endless parade of martial miracles for the U.S. army, they invariably ended up in the hands of the very terrorists that they were intended to put down.  Even though Stark's Arc Reactor makes him "the only name in clean energy," it created a global arms race that threatened national security just as often as it preserved it.  Even in Age of Ultron, his attempts to "create a suit of armor around the world" results in the Avengers greatest adversary to date.

The Iron Man armor is unquestionably the coolest piece of technological gizmometry to hit the big screen this century.  While the improved design and technical specs of latter variations do give it a run for its money - with the Hulkbuster armor quite possibly walking away with that title later this year - nothing comes close to the elegant simplicity of the Mark II armor.

Paired with Robert Downey Jr.'s animated screen presence, Tony Stark is one of the most instantly memorable movie characters to hits screens in recent decades, up there with Bale's Batman, Depp's Captain Jack and Evans' Captain America.  He and director Jon Favreau transformed Iron Man - a then B-list superhero with next to no mainstream presence - into the premiere hero of the fledgling Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Upon revisiting the film, however, I can't help but notice that it has some undeniable structural problems that are made all the more glaring by The Avengers', The Winter Soldier's, Guardians of the Galaxy's and even Iron Man 3's far more solid scripts.  The first act both establishes Stark's character and transforms him into a self-aware penitent.  The second act provides the outlet for his redemption by having him clean up his messes in the Middle East with the Mark II armor.

But the third act?  It has all the necessary stakes-raising and climactic shoot outs of a modern action movie, but nothing more than that.  The Iron Monger is a serviceable villain that serviceably wraps up the movie before its iconic post-credit scene.  Stark doesn't develop any more than he already has and the movie is never any more exciting that it is when Iron Man took out those terrorists in Afghanistan.  The movie thus far was simply so good that it didn't actually need to do any more than tread water until it ended.

When all is said and done, though, Iron Man is a landmark superhero movie and one of the best action movies to come out in recent years.  Between the technical marvel of the Iron Man armor, the pitch-perfect cast and its ambitious eye for the future, it's earned every last shred of praise that it has ever been given.  To say that it's not the best - nor even the second best - movie of Marvel's Phase 1 is testament to just how above the curve the meta-franchise ultimately is.

So what do you think about the first Iron Man?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Join the Filmquisition on Twitter (@Filmquisition) or by subscribing to this blog.