The Invincible Iron Man (2007) (V)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Directors:

Patrick Archibald
Jay Oliva
(more)

Writers:

Avi Arad (story)
Greg Johnson (writer)
(more)

Release Date:

23 January 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Action | Adventure | Fantasy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

A Lone Warrior. A Suit of Armor. Our Only Hope. IRON MAN.

Plot:

When a cocky industrialist's efforts to raise an ancient Chinese temple leads him to be seriously wounded and captured by enemy forces, he must use his ideas for a revolutionary power armor in order to fight back as a superhero.

Plot Keywords:

The Mandarin | China | Prophecy | Elementals | Armor

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Marc Worden	...	Tony Stark / Iron Man (voice)
Gwendoline Yeo	...	Li Mei (voice)
Fred Tatasciore	...	The Mandarin / Additional Voices (voice)
Rodney Saulsberry	...	James 'Rhodey' Rhodes (voice)
Elisa Gabrielli	...	Virginia 'Pepper' Potts (voice)
John McCook	...	Howard Stark (voice)
James Sie	...	Wong Chu (voice)
Stephen Mendillo	...	Boyer (voice)
John DeMita	...	Agent Drake / Additional Voices (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
George Cheung	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Chris Edgerly	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Paul Nakauchi	...	Additional Voices (voice)
Michael Yama	...	Additional Voices (voice)

Directed by
Patrick Archibald
Jay Oliva
Frank Paur		(supervising)

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Avi Arad		story
Greg Johnson		writer
Craig Kyle		writer
Stan Lee		comic book and characters
Larry Lieber		comic book and characters

Produced by
Ari Arad	....	co-producer
Avi Arad	....	executive producer
Craig Kyle	....	executive producer
Stan Lee	....	co-executive producer
Frank Paur	....	producer
Eric S. Rollman	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Guy Michelmore

Film Editing by
Aeolan Kelly
George Rizkallah

Casting by
Jamie Simone

Production Management
Carrie Wassenaar	....	production manager

Art Department
Troy Adomitis	....	additional storyboard
Kevin Altieri	....	additional storyboard
Sharon Bridgeman	....	additional storyboard
Joaquim Dos Santos	....	additional storyboard
Peter Ferk	....	additional storyboard
Lynell Forestall	....	storyboard artist
Jennifer Graves	....	additional storyboard
Jason Hanks	....	storyboard artist
Gary Hartle	....	additional storyboard
Sam Liu	....	storyboard artist
Butch Lukic	....	additional storyboard
Juan Jose Meza-Leon	....	storyboard artist
Gary Montalbano	....	development artist
Frank Paur	....	character designer
James Peters	....	color key designer
Chad Townsend	....	prop designer
Kirk Van Wormer	....	additional storyboard (as Kirk Van Wermer)
Brandon Vietti	....	additional storyboard

Sound Department
David Ball	....	foley editor
David Ball	....	foley recordist
Kyle Clausen	....	sound editor
Mike Draghi	....	sound re-recording mixer
Mike Draghi	....	supervising sound editor
Mike Garcia	....	lead dialogue editor
Eric Lewis	....	dialogue recording engineer
Nancy Parker	....	foley artist
Stuart Provine	....	sound designer
Stephen P. Robinson	....	supervising sound editor
Tim Walston	....	sound designer

Animation Department
Ralph A. Eusebio	....	animatic editor
Lynell Forestall	....	character designer
Fedja Jovanovic	....	background designer
Aeolan Kelly	....	animatic editor
Chad Townsend	....	production artist
Paul Yacono	....	animatic editor

Editorial Department
Jana Pennell	....	assistant editor
James Peters	....	color supervisor

Music Department
David Leon	....	music supervisor
Mark Ryan	....	music editor

Other crew
Roy Allen	....	production assistant
Michael Collins	....	production accountant
Joshua Fine	....	production associate
Cory Gustke	....	production coordinator
Laura Lopez	....	production coordinator
Douglas W. McHenry	....	production accountant

Production Companies

• Marvel Studios
• Marvel Enterprises

Distributors

• Lions Gate Films Home Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)
• Maple Pictures (2007) (Canada) (DVD)
• Scanbox Entertainment (2008) (Finland) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Studiopolis  sound post-production

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for action violence and some sensuality.

Runtime:

83 min | 83 min (approx)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | English

Color:

Color (NTSC Color) | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | Dolby (Dolby 5.1)

Certification:

USA:PG-13 | USA:PG-13 (DVD) | Singapore:PG | Finland:K-11

Company:

Marvel Studios

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Tony says the life-support device makes him "look like Frankenstein." Frankenstein was the creator, not the monster (though this is a common mistake).

Quotes:

Tony Stark: Interactive ex-suits. With these things, one person can accomplish what it would take dozens, exploration of any hostile environments, deep sea, volcano, space, anything. These armors will change the world. And since the next place on the map is on the floor of the Atlantic, the aqautic model is going to get me there.

Movie Connections:

References Frankenstein (1931)

A Nutshell Review: The Invincible Iron Man

The only reason why I picked this up was because it's on cheap sale, and it doesn't hurt to see how Marvel would have envisioned their hero way before the live action feature film starring Robert Downey Jr hit the big screens, right?

The Invincible Iron Man is an origin story, but as far as origins are concerned, they are open to updates and reinterpretation. The original Stan Lee version had Tony Stark develop his suit of armor during the Vietnam War, since this character was developed in the 60s. With the movie version, it got updated to reflect some Middle East sentiments. For this animated version, since they wanted to fuse his origins to that of chief villain The Mandarin, we have it set in the Orient, where Stark Enterprises got itself a project to lift an aged old monument from the buried underground, only to unleash some prophecy which involves the second coming of The Mandarin.

There are a couple of changes to how Tony got his heart injured and had to rely on an over-sized pacemaker, but this time he got help from good friend Rhodes, since he's now an employee of Tony, and has nothing to do with the Air Force. I suppose purists would already foam at the mouth by now. Nonetheless you know the drill as plot elements are kept quite consistent - they build a crude suit of armour, and break away from imprisonment. But to speed things up to meet run time requirements, it turns out that Tony Stark already has a whole array of suits back in his penthouse, and can call upon the fancy variations to do battle with the Elementals who are in the quest to recover the Mandarin's power rings to resurrect him.

The action sequences do look a bit lacklustre, because the Elementals are basically one-trick ponies, and it doesn't take much effort for our hero to dispatch them one by one. Then again of course this is Tony Stark's first foray as a hero utilizing his suits for good, so he's not all that versed with battling enemies, and magical ones at that too. But in an effort to build up to the climatic finale, there are a couple of missteps. First, it's actually an antique armour that he uses - for one I would like him to have used his most powerful suit available, but no thanks to SHIELD. And if you think the finale battle would be something like the image on the back cover of the DVD sleeve, it's not! In fact while there's an interesting twist on The Mandarin which you could see coming from a mile away, alas the battle is nothing but a big letdown.

There are also a couple of recurring characters to complete the animated universe, such as Tony's dad Howard, where the plot follows that of Batman Begins involving some major boardroom struggle, as well as faithful secretary Pepper Potts, who had a lot more to do here than Gywneth Paltrow's version in the feature film. But they don't add much value to the film here. The pace moves quite hurriedly, and coupled with the disappointing lack of a proper finale, this is one animated flick that could have been much better if it provided some more exciting action sequences, since after all, an animated feature opens up the imagination to unlimited boundaries, just like how a page on a comic book does the same.