Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

Iron Man is simply that – a man made of iron. Or I suppose, more accurately, a man encased in a weaponised iron suit which was built, powered and used by Billionaire Tony Stark.

Initially constructed to keep him alive the suit made him eligible to join the Avengers Iniative, but that’s another story.

The Iron Man trilogy spanned the following (stand alone) movies; Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010) Iron Man 3 (2013).

Iron Man 2 (2.5/5)
The second movie in the Iron Man trilogy is the one I liked the least. The storyline, a Russian criminal and mechanical engineer/electrician/physist avenging his fathers legacy by continuing the vendetta against Tony instead of his long deceased father Howard Stark, felt so contrived it was difficult to stay invested. What was a little more interesting was Tony dealing with his impending death and re-evaluating the relationship he had with his father. We barely scratched the surface on that though.

Iron Man (3/5)
The movie that launched a thousand movies – well the twenty-three that make up the first three phases of the MCU. There is a lot about this movie I forgot – pretty much all of it. The maniacal (and weirdly attractive) Jeff Bridges was great in this. It felt personal which is what Iron Man 2 was missing. The movie built a great foundation for who Tony Stark was and what he could do.

Iron Man 3 (3/5)
The most standout movie of the three, the last felt like it had a little bit more substance than the others. Guy Pearce as antagonist Aldrich Killian, his Inferno Humans, Ben Kingsly playing a weird British dude and Don Cheadle’s Rhodey’s one liners in the Iron Patriot. It was more of the movie I had been expecting all along: crazy bad guy with an actual personal vendetta, an interesting twist or two, loads of robots and a kid who wasn’t irritating. This movie is also post The Avengers (2012) so it deals with the fallout from those events, including Tony’s anxiety and heavy reliance on his suits, without making it the linchpin.

I was pretty geared up for my rewatch of the Iron Man Trilogy, it had been years and I had forgotten 90% of what happens, unfortunately by the end I was a little disappointed.

There really isn’t too much to say about each individual movie in regards to story because not much actually happens, and when it does it’s rearly very interesting. What  elevates all of these movies is simply Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark. No one else is actually given a chance to shine (what do we really know about Pepper other than her last name?) The embodiment of the character is the real reason we all keep coming back for more and why we all rate it so highly.

IRON MAN TRILOGY – 6/10