Playboy Tony Stark inherited the defense contractor Stark Industries from his father, Howard Stark, after Obadiah Stane took over the company until Tony turned 21. Beyond his wealth, Tony was brilliant from a young age and graduated from MIT at 17, with his father passing soon after. Since then, Tony Stark has created countless smart weapons used by the government that have changed the world forever. Despite this, Tony has a distinct careless attitude, and his business strategies are far from traditional.
On a trip to war-torn Afghanistan with his friend Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes to demonstrate the new “Jericho” missile, Stark and some military guards are ambushed by terrorists using weaponry from Stark Enterprises, where Stark himself is critically wounded with shrapnel and imprisoned in a cave by a terrorist group known as the 10 Rings. While Stark is passed out, Yinsen, a fellow captive, builds an electromagnet device to keep the shrapnel from entering Tony’s heart and to keep him alive. It’s initially powered by a car battery, but when the 10 Rings force Tony to build another Jericho missile for them, he makes a condensed version of his Arc Reactor to power the magnet in his chest.
Instead of building a missile for the terrorists, Tony decides to build a metal suit to armor himself against his captors, powered by the Arc Reactor and electromagnet. He builds the suit with Yinsen while the 10 Rings believe he is working on the bomb, and by the time they suspect otherwise, Tony is already done. He attacks the terrorist group trying to get him and Yinsen out, but in the crossfire, Yinsen passes away. Tony promises not to waste his life.
After making it out of the cave, Tony wanders the desert until a U.S. helicopter spots him and safely escorts him back to the States. There, he immediately issues a press conference for his company, where he (literally) sits them down and tells them that Stark Enterprises will no longer manufacture weapons. Obadiah Stane advises him otherwise, saying it would ruin the company and his father’s reputation, but Tony counters that his Arc reactor can provide free, clean power for the entire planet.
Stark goes on to work on a more powerful suit and Arc reactor, and his personal assistant, Pepper Potts, puts his old Arc reactor in a glass case after a conversation about keepsakes, labeled, “proof that Tony Stark has a heart.”
Tony soon learns that Stark Industries’ weapons were recently shipped to the Ten Rings and are being used to attack Yinsen’s home village, and that Obadiah has betrayed him and is trying to become the new CEO of Stark Industries. In response, Tony puts on his suit and flies to Afghanistan, where he saves Yinsen’s village and attacks the Ten Rings. He is then spotted by the U.S. Military, who thinks he is an attack plane and tries to shoot him out of the air. He calls Rhodes and reveals what he is doing to him while trying to avoid being shot.
In another scene, Obadiah meets with the 7 Rings members, who bring scraps of Tony’s original suit from the cave, and he turns on them, killing them all. We then see him create an even larger suit from the parts. Back in Malibu, Stark sends Pepper to retrieve information from Stane’s computer and is almost caught in the process. Here we learn that Obadiah planned the initial hit on Tony at the beginning of the film, working with the 7 Rings the whole time. She later meets with SHIELD (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division) agent Phil Coulson, a counter-terrorism agency, to inform him of Stane’s activities.
Obadiah and the people working for him cannot replicate the arc reactor effectively, so he decides to get the reactor himself from Tony’s chest directly, using a device to paralyze him. Relying on the device to survive, Stark crawls to the arc reactor, encased in glass, and uses that to power his suit. Meanwhile, Pepper and members of SHIELD try to track Stark down to arrest him, but he appears in his suit and attacks them. Tony tries to fight him off, but with Obadiah’s superior arc reactor and larger suit, Tony is overpowered. In response, he tells Pepper to go to the top of the Stark Tower and override the arc reactor, which unleashes a large electrical surge that knocks Stane unconscious and makes him fall into the reactor, killing him.
The next day, everyone calls Stark “Iron Man” in the suit, and Agent Coulson gives Stark a cover for the night of the attack. While retelling this story to the press, Stark cannot sit and watch the hero be celebrated without them knowing who it is, and he announces that he is, in reality, Iron Man.
In a post-credits scene, the first of many in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, SHIELD Director Nick Fury visits Tony at his home and mentions that he might not be the only superhero in the world and that he is looking to put together a team called the Avengers.
I honestly really liked this movie. Iron Man is a really well-thought-out movie, and I like how Marvel Studios used it as their introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I actually had never seen any Marvel movies, aside from the Spider-Man movies, until I decided to watch all the movies in their universe. Robert Downey Jr. really sold Tony Stark for me, and I don’t think I could see this movie being as good as it is without his charisma.
I love the messaging in this movie. At first, I was a little skeptical about why the protagonist was bombing countries in the Middle East—that’s not a great hook—but as the movie goes on, I love where his character goes and how quickly he changes his mind after seeing the harm his weaponry has caused.
Tony’s whole Afghanistan arc is probably my favorite part of this movie. I love how, after being kidnapped by the 10 Rings people, Tony can create a giant suit of armor instead of a bomb, and nobody questions anything until it’s basically finished. The electromagnet is also introduced here, and it’s cool how the Arc Reactor and his suit work with his actual body, rather than just being a suit. I also loved Yinsen, and was really sad when he died. The last words he says to Tony, to not waste his life, are especially significant when you think about how much Tony Stark and his persona, Iron Man, would go on to impact the world around him in following movies.
I love Pepper; she’s a responsible assistant to Tony, the exact opposite of who he is, and, honestly, a great love interest for him. She is really good at turning his attention to what matters, which we will see more of in future movies. She also has a lot to do in this movie beyond just being his assistant or love interest, and she is really involved in the main conflict and conclusion, working with SHIELD and all.
Obadiah is a really well-played character in my opinion. Maybe I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have, but I never really suspected him to be a main villain. That reveal at the award ceremony definitely surprised me, and the fact that he planned the whole attack on Tony surprised me even more. Knowing that Stane had complete control of Stark Industries for a few years before Tony took over makes me wonder how much harm he did before the movie even began.
I honestly like how Tony decides to reveal that he’s Iron Man in the first movie he’s introduced in. He is way too prideful to hide his hero identity from the public, and even if he tried, it would probably be really difficult in future installments. The “secret identity” trope is really important in many heroes’ storylines, but it wouldn’t really help anything in a billionaire’s life.
Overall, Iron Man is a really good movie and an introduction to the MCU, taking aspects from the real world and morphing them into a political satire and action film; it opened the gates to countless future films and TV shows based on the Marvel comics of the past decades.
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