Iron Man (2008)

After being held captive in an Afghan cave, billionaire engineer Tony Stark creates a unique weaponized suit of armor to fight evil.

Director:

Jon Favreau

Writers:

Mark Fergus (screenplay), Hawk Ostby (screenplay)

Stars:

Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 20 wins & 65 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robert Downey Jr.	...	Tony Stark / Iron Man
Terrence Howard	...	Rhodey
Jeff Bridges	...	Obadiah Stane
Gwyneth Paltrow	...	Pepper Potts
Leslie Bibb	...	Christine Everhart
Shaun Toub	...	Yinsen
Faran Tahir	...	Raza
Clark Gregg	...	Agent Coulson
Bill Smitrovich	...	General Gabriel
Sayed Badreya	...	Abu Bakaar
Paul Bettany	...	JARVIS (voice)
Jon Favreau	...	Hogan
Peter Billingsley	...	William Ginter Riva
Tim Guinee	...	Major Allen
Will Lyman	...	Award Ceremony Narrator (voice)

Storyline

Tony Stark. Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Son of legendary inventor and weapons contractor Howard Stark. When Tony Stark is assigned to give a weapons presentation to an Iraqi unit led by Lt. Col. James Rhodes, he's given a ride on enemy lines. That ride ends badly when Stark's Humvee that he's riding in is attacked by enemy combatants. He survives - barely - with a chest full of shrapnel and a car battery attached to his heart. In order to survive he comes up with a way to miniaturize the battery and figures out that the battery can power something else. Thus Iron Man is born. He uses the primitive device to escape from the cave in Iraq. Once back home, he then begins work on perfecting the Iron Man suit. But the man who was put in charge of Stark Industries has plans of his own to take over Tony's technology for other matters.

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Plot Keywords:

playboy | billionaire | inventor | afghanistan | u.s. air force | 

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Taglines:

Get ready for a different breed of heavy metal hero.

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English Persian Urdu Arabic Hungarian

Release Date:

2 May 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

Ironman

Filming Locations:

Palmdale Regional Airport, Palmdale, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$140,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$98,618,668, 2 May 2008, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$318,412,101, 2 October 2008

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$585,174,222, 2 October 2008

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, Marvel Enterprises, Marvel Studios

Technical Specs

Runtime:

126 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In October 1999, Quentin Tarantino was approached to write and direct the film. Later, Joss Whedon, a big fan of the comic book, was in negotiations to direct the film in June 2001. In December 2004, Nick Cassavetes was hired as a director, with the film to release in 2006, but everything fell through. Finally, Jon Favreau was hired as director in April 2006.

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Goofs

(at around 33 mins) When Tony is putting on the MARK1 suit with the help of Yinsen, a few terrorists are shouting through the door. The language they use, as Yinsen reveals to Tony, is (a heavily broken) Hungarian. In reality, Hungarians have nothing to do with terrorists. In fact, Hungary is a member of NATO and has sent troops to Afghanistan to aid the US forces.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Tony Stark: I feel like you're driving me to court martial. This is crazy. What did I do? I feel like you're gonna pull over and snuff me. What, you're not allowed to talk? Hey, Forrest!
Jimmy: We can talk, sir.
Tony Stark: Oh, I see. So it's personal.
Ramirez: No, you intimidate them.
Tony Stark: Good God, you're a woman! I honestly, I couldn't have called that. I mean, I would apologize, but isn't that what we're going for here? I thought of you as a soldier first.
Ramirez: I'm an airman.
Tony Stark: Well, you have actually excellent bone structure ...
[...]

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Crazy Credits

SPOILER: A scene appears after the closing credits: Tony Stark arrives home to find SHIELD director Nick Fury waiting for him so that they can discuss the Avengers Initiative. This leads into The Avengers (2012) (a superhero team of which Iron Man is a founding member).

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Connections

Referenced in Chelsea Lately: Episode #7.139 (2013)

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Soundtracks

Kool Katz
Written and Performed by Chucho Merchán
Courtesy of Extreme Music

User Reviews

Surprisingly Well Done

So the world premier of Iron man to regular movie going audiences happened to be here in Seoul Korea on an army installation. I got to check it out and I was delightfully surprised.

Much against the hype, I thought this movie would have been torrid trash acting mingled with cheesy fight scenes. I mean Robert Downey Jr as an action superhero? But I am glad to admit that I misjudged the movie completely. Downey played a very good Tony Stark, in generally every way. From his jokes to his obnoxious lifestyle he looked and walked the part very well. His banter with his right hand assistant Ms. Pepper Potts isn't mind numbing and actually found myself laughing aloud at some of the wit.

The movie itself moved at a very good pace. Mixing action, comedy and some drama to just about the right proportions. As with most superhero movies, its rather predictable, but in all the right ways you'd want a superhero movie to be. The animation used was almost seamless, and of course the Iron Man costume was kicking major ass.

My only gripe with the movie was the fact that several characters were thrown into the mix with little behind them other than 2D character attributes. Leslie Bibb's character, Christine Everhart, is pretty useless other than the two or three lines she has. Hardly worth a hardbody like Leslie Bibb to play. Several other characters didn't feel fleshed out at all. Raza (Faran Tahir), Obediah Stone (Jeff Bridges) , and even Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard) feel hollow in the fact that they have little justification for many of their actions.

So All in all, I'd give this movie an 8.3. Fun for the whole family, great pacing, and a Superhero movie to give the next Batman movie a run for its money.