Here are some well-known faces from Sundance over the years, as they brought their early movies to the festival.
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Title: Iron Man (2008)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Robert Downey Jr. | ... | Tony Stark | |
| 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) | |
The Marvel Cinematic Universe launched with Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man, but he almost didn't get the part. See what other actors were up for the role.
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. Written by halo1k
Rest assured, Iron Man is an absolutely amazing movie. I won't dare spoil any of this remarkable movie for you but I do recommend it as highly as I possibly can. Marvel needed to get in to the solo movie making business long ago. Instead of leasing out their characters to other studios, they're making movies themselves. Most everyone knows Iron Man is their first effort and what a great lead off film! This movie helps take the comic book genre to the highest level. Just like they did in the books, they reinvent standard epic adventure by "Marvelizing" characters and making them more believable. The Spider-Man and the X-Men movies did this to a degree but only as far as their respective studios wished to stay true to the source material. Anything added or amended was for the benefit of the live action adaptation. Director Sam Raimi pulled this off by talking to the summer crowd, not down to them with the Spider-Man series. Jon Favreau has done the same thing here but I think he's done it even better. Raimi intentionally threw in a little cheese. Favreau adds nice bits of humor but not too much. He also grounds the action and the suit of armor in firm reality. I've said it before but it's brave to reach for the highest common denominator with a big budget film and Favreau delivers a movie with as much feeling as it has action and intensity. Needless to say, Robert Downey Jr. and company deliver the goods. It's a movie that has a wonderful balance that delivers intelligence with its fun.
The amazing yet realistic action is paced by the plot and characters that keep you interested from start to finish. What absolutely blew me away were the phenomenal special effects. I know they built a practical, working armor. What I loved is the use of CGI was used to augment the real life armor and not create something from scratch. Most all CGI constructs feel fake somehow but the stuff in Iron Man didn't seem fake even for an instant. As great as everything looked, what really drives the movie is the emotional resonance and down to earth nature of the plot. Sure the concept is wild but it's all presented so that you really believe it could happen. I doubt anyone will find fault with this movie unless they went in trying to dislike it.
This is, without a doubt going to be one of my top 10 movies of 2008, quite possibly the number one film.