Welcome to Josef Kills the MCU. Before we start, yes that is a reference to Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe. Alright we good? In this very quick fire style series we are going to take on every single MCU movie in the next 14 days. It’s not going to be easy but I’m sure we can get through it! I’ll be trying to score the films as well but this is more of a build up towards Infinity War and we will be reflecting before we pull the trigger.
For those of you who don’t know me or my preferences. I’ve often spoken about Iron Man in the past and how it is one of my favourite movies. This still stands to this day as over the past 10 years, I’ve followed the on screen life of Tony Stark and by god Thanos better leave him alone please. But where did this young man start out, and what sort of movies were we consuming at the time, before a cinematic universe was even comprehensible.
In 2008 we would have had our fair share of superhero movies. The strongest being the Sam Raimi Spiderman movies by that point. However X-Men was alive even if not well, Fantastic 4 had been done and we even had the Dark Knight Trilogy setting a standard no one could dream of. Rights to an Iron Man movie had been thrown around for many years with no one wanting to pick up a movie for this C list comic book character. Even Tom Cruise was considered for the role of Tony Stark in the early days. However as you all know we were blessed with Robert Downy Jr. A man who has blurred the line between his on screen and real life persona. His performance was so legendary to the character that the comics have been remade and drafted around the way he plays the character.
Downy quickly became the leading icon for this movie and what would be the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even outside of the build up that this film created, there was still a very enjoyable solo movie to enjoy. It wouldn’t be one of my favourite movies ever if it wasn’t at least strong on its own. Yes while I understand it’s not any serious form of narrative storytelling or groundbreaking action, but it’s a very powerful movie for me to see, and made me fall in love with Tony Stark.
Iron Man is a movie about an arsehole who sells weapons and lives the high life. Until he is thrust into the action and begins to realise he has done more harm than good in his life. In a sense the main antagonist is Tony himself and the legacy he has created. His mission from here on out is to correct those mistakes, save the ones who have been harmed by his own creations and of course keep living the high life. Tony Stark is still a charismatic jackass by the end of this movie, but his goal to keep the world safe escalated and as we’ve seen in time causes great emotional pain for him.
Before I saw Iron Man i had no idea who the character was and what his story was. By the end of the movie I had someone who would later go on to rival my love for Spider-Man. And while I am trying to focus on this film before the MCU kicked off we can’t deny the legacy it has created. The MCU is now the most successful movie franchise pumping out on average 3 movies a year with plans to continue for another 4 years beyond Infinity War. The key part of the success has been the characters, all of them have gone on great journeys with some top notch character development. Tony being the main one for me again, he’s gone through a lot of heartbreak but he treats each of them as another lesson as he desperately tries to save his friends.
Iron Man did end up being the strongest out of his trilogy, with Iron Man 2 and 3 offending more people than pleasing them. However everyone can at least enjoy the character of Tony in each of these. His ability to carry a scene or an entire movie is one of the strongest in the entire MCU. At the end of the day, Tony is the key to all of it and I still re-watch this movie with the excitement I did back then. My little brain could never predict what would happen in the next few years, as universe would collide. This movie also spawned my love for the comics again and reminded me of why I loved superheroes so much as a kid.
That was Iron Man, a wonderful start to the universe and still one of my top 5 easily if not my favourite of the entire MCU. If I had to score it, it would most likely be a 9. But as I said, we are here to remember what we came from to get to war at the end of the road. Join me tomorrow hopefully for one of the less remembered MCU movies. The Incredible Hulk.
Love Iron Man too, looking forward to the rest of your reports in the run up to INFINITY!