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.Any of that sound familiar? I don't know what script came first, this or the eventual live action one directed by Jon Favreau but this movie either borrows from Iron-Man (2008) or that movie borrows from this. In a nutshell replace the middle east for China, Agent Coulson for Agent Drake (Albeit briefly), Li-Mei instead of Pepper as the love interest, Yinsen for a generic Chinese monk, and a few other small elements and you have the basic start to the live action movie.
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| The Invincible Iron Man (2007) |
What does this movie do right?
Not much sadly, well it does look decent at times, it has a good blend of cel and computer generated animation in it. It does a good job of skipping all of the origin story that usually plagues most comic book movies, weather they be animated or live action, I understand it is crucial to the audience for first time comic book movie goers but not all movies need these, especially not the animated ones in my opinion.
What does this movie do wrong?
A lot! First let me start by saying this was in 2007, and while that is not too long ago, comic book and Marvel movies have come a long way since then. Before this, the last Iron Man action we received was the older cartoon show back in the 90's that only lasted a few seasons (I will review that series eventually). Like I mentioned above, the plot is almost exactly like the live action movie, but somehow it doesn't really work in this film, Tony basically gets hi-jacked like he does in the live action film, all that is missing is the famous "How was the funvee?" line by Rhodey. Only reason that doesn't happen is because Rhodey is some pseudo-foreman on this job in which this city is trying to be risen. He gets captured first, Tony later, with the help of the Chinese Yinsen and Rhodey they create the Mark I, Chinese Yinsen gets killed, it pisses off Tony, he suits up for the first time (I think, more on that in a second) and takes off back home. The plot then turns into a story that might have worked well in the comics in the 80's but not in the 2000's, Tony now-a-days is always at conflict with things he cannot explain through science or tech. This story is about the last in a long line of Mandarin lineage who will help keep the Mandarin name alive by becoming a vessel for his return (Never seen that done before anywhere either). The issue for me is that it doesn't seem like a current Iron Man story, he is usually seen battling other super genius types with tech or suits or helping the Avengers battle a foe in a bigger scale fight. This is basically ancient Chinese dynasty elementals vs modern day science and yet Tony loses through 90% of this film.
Another part that bugs me is the voice acting, again Tony didn't have an established role as the go-to guy in the Marvel universe quite yet and no said actor (Voice or live) had been the predominate guy that when you heard or saw him, you though, "THAT is Tony Stark!". Marc Worden plays Tony in this movie, and went on to play him in both the Ultimate's movies as well. I can't get past him, while overall he is a decent voice actor, as Tony he sounds like any generic male in a porn movie or a commercial for Viagra. Even when he is in battle or trying to be dramatic, I hear Tony the pool boy, not Iron Man. The rest of the voice acting is not bad, Fred Tatasciore is in it as the Mandarin but without spoiling it, he kind of grunts and makes Hulk-like noises until the very end. All I can say is I am glad Nolan North was not in this, at this time he was steady working but not in everything super hero or video game related yet. I stated above the animation looks decent at times, well there are some very BAD times too, a scene where Rhodey, Pepper, and Tony are sneaking into Tony's office and it goes from 2007 animation quality to 1980's Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends quality for a few frames. At the end when he talks to Li Mei with his helmet open his face is terribly animated to the point where you laugh for a second.
One thing that is weird to me, in this movie there is not a lot of back story, now you may be saying, well you are contradicting yourself from earlier now! I didn't need an origin story but after Tony escapes, we see him and Rhodey in his "secret office" and he suddenly has a hall full of armors with no significant time having been passed. Has he been Iron Man all this time, did he crank out a dozen suits in a week? We don't know. Also his dear ol Dad is in this movie and is a waste of a character, this movie would have done better from him being dead like in the other versions. Tony and his Dad obviously have issues stemming from the loss of his mother yet aside from looking almost exactly alike, they don't really interact much through the movie and he almost looks like the villain at one point. I guess this is where the animated movie is different from the live action. Pepper plays more of a Moneypenny role to Tony vs being the love interest like she is now. She covers up for Tony, assists him in semi illegal activities and the two flirt much like James Bond does with his version of Pepper in their movies. There is no Jarvis whatsoever, the voiced AI in the suits is a female voice that is never alluded too. It's just...there, again is Tony doing all this for the first time or has he been Iron Man for a bit now, we'll never know.
Lastly, the action is fairly weak, I think you have to write-down Iron Man, and what I mean by that is how they do with Superman. Tony is super rich and supposedly creates these suits that can rival anything in the world yet he is always getting his ass handed to him, so you need to make up something that can temporarily beat the hero. There always seems to be scenes in the comics, movies, cartoons, where we see him getting violently ejected out of his suit and him doing the walk of shame back to the drawing board. Ultimately he always comes up with a new Mark suit and comes back and saves the day and this movie is no different in that regard. Tony fights these 4 Chinese elemental warriors before sort of fighting the Mandarin at the end (He is revived through a near rip-off of Shang Tsung's fatality in Mortal Kombat). The action is so-so, nothing compared to that of other animated comic book movies. In the end it would have been cooler to see him fight someone who is more on par like we saw him do with Iron Monger in Iron Man (2008).
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| The 4 Elemental baddies |
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| 1 of maybe 3 Iron Man suits seen in the movie |
Have you seen this movie? Was it as bad as I thought, did you love it? Did I miss something, feel free to sound off below in the comments section, thanx for reading.
