Written by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, and Art Marcum
Directed by Jon Favreau

With Iron Man, we see the first signs that the stage is being set for something more. Watching it chronologically, we see cameos by some of the same people we saw at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger, as well as Captain Marvel. At the same time, Iron Man stands completely on its own.

The movie opens in the desert, presumably the Middle East. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is embedded with a security unit that comes under fire. Tony is taken captive and used as a hostage.

The film then backs up to an awards ceremony and an encounter with a reporter as a way of giving Tony Stark’s background and developing his character. He beds women without thinking past the immediate gratification, which is a metaphor for how he lives his entire life. He is callous and conceited, confident in his brilliance that he can do no wrong.

Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), his personal assistant, tries to get him moving in the morning as he’s scheduled to leave for the Middle East. There’s affection between them, but it seems to be Tony just being Tony. He doesn’t treat her any differently than he does Rhodey (Terrence Howard), his liaison from the military. He seems to take it for granted that everyone around him will do his bidding.

Jumping back to the events that started the film, Tony wakes up and finds out he’s been operated on. He now has an electromagnet embedded in his chest, keeping the shrapnel from his own missiles from entering his heart. His captors torture him in an attempt to force him to build them a missile. As he’s paraded through their camp, he sees all kinds of weaponry from his own company. He’s instructed to build the new missile he was testing, and then he will be set free, which he knows is a lie.

Tony and Yinsen (Shaun Toub), the doctor who operated on him, work together to make it look like they are doing what was asked of him. What he’s actually working on is making what he has in his chest work without needing to be hooked up to a battery. He also starts developing the first Iron Man suit. When they come to kill him, he uses the suit and escapes.

Tony comes back from the Middle East with a different perspective on being a weapons manufacturer. He calls a press conference where he announces that Stark Industries will no longer manufacture weapons. Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), the man who runs Stark Industries in Tony’s absence, is mortified. He tries to smooth things over, but the Stark stock starts tanking (say that three times fast).

At a charity ball, Tony is confronted with proof that Stark Industries’ weapons are still being shipped into the Middle East. He learns that Obadiah has gone behind his back and delivered weapons to the very people who had held Tony hostage. Tony returns home and loads himself into the Iron Man suit, then flies to the Middle East. He blows up the Stark Industries weapons there in the hands of insurgents.

Tony is on his way back when he’s spotted by American Forces. He has to admit to Rhodey that it’s him as they send out a welcoming committee. They believe he’s hostile and go after him, but Tony evades them and saves one of the pilots. Pepper learns what he did and is mortified. He asks her to hack into the mainframe to find out who has been sending weapons to the insurgents. Pepper threatens to quit. Tony confesses that he is trying to set things right, so she helps him.

Obadiah meets with Raza (Faran Tahir), the man who had taken Tony hostage. Raza shows him the first suit Tony put together. Obadiah steals the suit from him. He wants the company to build more iron men, but the scientists can’t figure out how to power them.

Pepper is in Obadiah’s office trying to get information for Tony when Obadiah returns. She tries to hide what she’s doing as Obadiah tries to convince her that there’s something wrong with Tony, but Obadiah suspects her of stealing files from his computer.

Pepper enlists Agent Coulson’s (Clark Gregg) help. Meanwhile, Obadiah goes to Tony’s place and steals the arc reactor that he has in his chest to use in the scientist’s Iron Man. He thinks that will kill Tony, but Tony knows the old reactor is still downstairs. This sets up the final battle between Obadiah and Tony.

Iron Man serves as character development for the Tony Stark character, with some pretty spectacular special effects. Right from the beginning, the audience learns what Tony is about. When he’s embedded with the security forces, he’s brazen and unconcerned. He’s treating the whole thing as a lark until a missile lands on the vehicle in front of theirs. The short video at the Apogee Award ceremony gives his background, that he’s a genius, not just the son of a weapons manufacturer with a silver spoon in his mouth. Still, he’s not someone who has thought much about the consequences of his decision in life until he’s held captive for three months and sees it for himself.

Tony is not unlike the Howard Stark we saw in Captain America: The First Avenger and the Agent Carter series. There is a common thread to their personalities. Fans are never shown the growth of Howard into the person who eventually marries and leaves behind a legacy for Tony. The biography, though, shows that Tony was a prodigy at an early age and not just an empty shell with a lot of money. This is the moment that life changes for him; he sees the consequences of his actions firsthand, and it devastates him. For the first time, he sees the results of the weapons he’s been manufacturing instead of their destructiveness and the lives taken being abstract.

There is definite chemistry between Tony and Pepper, but she knows him too well to fall for him, even as an attraction grows between them. Tony has never really considered women as anything more than something to be enjoyed briefly. Pepper isn’t just going to jump into bed with Tony. She’s managed to keep him at arm’s length, and he likely hasn’t seriously hit on her because he needs her too much. Without realizing it, he’s allowed her to become important to him. When he sees the world differently after his time as a prisoner in the Middle East, he’s seeing Pepper differently, too.

Robert Downey Jr. was a great choice to portray Tony Stark. He’s having to play him a bit younger than his actual age, but he always was great at portraying flippant characters. He doesn’t have a complete character change in Iron Man, as most of his personality remains the same, but Downey manages to convey that there was a life-changing impact on him. Gwyneth Paltrow is a great match for him, coming off with just enough caring about Tony without seeming like she’s fallen for him. It’s going to take a little more than just the promise that he’s changed for Tony to convince her of anything.

Jeff Bridges does a great job as Tony’s foil, Obadiah. It makes sense that he’s been able to do what he wants with Stark Industries and wants Tony out of the way so he can continue. He doesn’t want to answer questions and is only concerned with arming both sides in the war so he can make more money. His threat is that he doesn’t care, while Tony has grown a conscience.

I enjoyed Terrence Howard as Rhodey. It’s a shame he didn’t continue in the role for the future films. I thought he had the right balance of being Tony’s friend versus working for the military. He’s willing to let his hair down with Tony and be his friend at the right time. Tony knows this as well and enjoys the challenge.

As far as comic book movies go, Iron Man is one of the best I’ve seen. Tony Stark isn’t someone particularly likable, but I found myself rooting for him. He shows promise, and there is a possibility that he’ll grow as a person into a hero. For now, he’s just a narcissist who is enjoying the publicity that being Iron Man gives him.

The movie’s Stan Lee moment has him as a Hugh Hefner-like character at the Stark Foundation Charity Ball. It’s a terrific moment, and there’s a deleted scene that expands on this that’s worth watching if you can find it.

In the Marvel Universe tradition, there’s a scene at the end of the credits. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is waiting for Tony when he arrives home after the press conference where he announced that he is Iron Man. This really ties together the three movies I’ve viewed so far chronologically. Fury is in all of them, making his case for the Avengers’ initiative.

There are extras on the Blu-ray that I enjoyed very much, which showed how they did many of the effects. Jon Favreau spends a lot of time explaining what he can as the director. It was also watching these that I realized that Peter Billingsley made a cameo in the film, as well as being one of the executive producers. Who is that, you might ask? Ralphie from A Christmas Story.

Iron Man can be a great spot to begin with the Marvel Cinematic Universe if you haven’t watched the films before. There’s not much of anything here that relies on earlier films in the series. It sets up some of the timeline for future stories, but it really is at its best introducing Tony Stark and the title character.

Blu-ray Bonus Material:

• I Am Iron Man: A Good Story, Well Told
• I Am Iron Man: Beneath the Armor
• I Am Iron Man: Grounded in Reality
• I Am Iron Man: The Journey Begins
• I Am Iron Man: The Suit That Makes the Iron Man
• Deleted Scenes
• Movie Trailer