Chris Hemsworth as Thor Tom Hiddleston as Loki Anthony Hopkins as Odin Idris Elba as Heimdall Colm Feore as Laufey Natalie Portman as Jane Foster Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig
Thor (Chris Hemsworth), God of Thunder and son of Odin (Anthony Perkins), is banished by his father and stripped of his mighty hammer Mjöllnir for having attempted an invasion of the Frost Giant’s home of Jotunheim in retaliation to the giant’s interruption of his own crowning ceremony. Now instead of being the next king, he is cast aside from his home of Asgard; his purpose is now lost and none of his friends are are able to stop Odin’s judgement. Heimdall (Idris Elba), both Thor’s friend and the guardian of the bifröst , a bridge capable of transporting anyone to any location, is forced to send the power God of thunder away. Thus, Thor is transported to the planet of Earth, where he immediately makes contact with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a young astrophysicist who had been following weather fluctuations, which unbeknownst to her had been tied to the use of bifröst.
The narrative is ambitious; on one hand it’s an attempt to tell the tale of Thor’s succession with epic familial stakes and on another hand it’s an attempt to meld the fantastical worlds present in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with the scientific excursions demonstrated so far in Iron Manand The Incredible Hulkin order to create a bridge to more complex directions. Unfortunately, that ambition can’t make up for the film’s inability to meld the worlds of Asgard and the Earth off one another in a fluid and mutually beneficial manner. Instead of helping one another, the halves of the movie feel disjointed with another and often times feel like they’re intruding – like they belong in different films.
Establishing shot of Jane and company in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico.
Jane (Natalie Portman) hits Thor (Chris Hemsworth) with her car.
Odin gives a voiceover as the film cuts to Tonsberg,Norway.
The order of the opening sequence is an odd choice that demonstrates the key problem with Thor – it’s inability to meld the human and fantasy storylines in a cohesive and engaging manner.
For example, the start of the movie opens on Jane looking for signs of her phenomena. She gets evidence, gets excited, and then drives towards the event where she ends up hitting Thor with her car. She asks where he came from at which point the film cuts to a voice-over by Odin in 965 A.D. where he goes over and explains the history of mankind. The viewer stays with Odin and Asgard for close to 30 minutes before cutting back to Jane and her crash with Thor, which is treated as a comedic moment. The epic intensity and impact of Thor’s exile immediately becomes the butt of a joke and the rest of the story follows; moments of intensity in the Asgardian moments trade off with comedic, fish out of water human moments which makes it impossible for emotional resonance to take hold at any important moments. This dichotomy is most pronounced in Patrick Doyle’s score which flips from seemingly epic to screw-ball comedy whenever the Asgardian plot threads meet up with the human ones.
Alas, the pitiful characterization of anyone not named Thor and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) hardly helps; the hollow Asgardian and human entourages that are meant to be foils for one another and Thor’s allies only serve to waste screen-time that could have been better spent. That’s the key reason why Iron Man, which also starts with its hero in a low point before cutting back to how he got there, is able to get the audience invested in what’s to come; everyone’s relationship to Tony Stark is established and we get a good sense of who he is, why he is the way he is, and how the people close to him deal with his personality quirks. Thor on the other hand does nothing like this for its titular character. Thor’s closest friends get no development: it’s impossible to tell them apart from one another let alone how they matter to Thor. Likewise, how Thor came to be his pompous and belligerent self and managed to inspire so much faith from those around him is less so explained and more just asserted.
This lack of grounding makes Thor’s subsequent meeting with Jane and her allies less relevant. Instead of being able to serve as ways to humanize Thor and help him grow into a hero worthy of redemption, thereby combining the two halves of the story, they seemingly transport him to a whole other narrative instead. Instead of epic, we get a meet-cute that reduces Thor, the God of Thunder, to a walking set of goofy abs and transforms Jane, an scientist devoted to her research, to a woman smitten by schoolgirl love. It’s precisely because these two worlds don’t line up with each other thematically that the movie then has to waste additional time introducing a whole other villain and sub-plot to help Thor get from point A to point B.
Imagine if the opening of the film started with Odin’s monologue about the history of Asgard and the 9 realms. We could see Thor, the warriors Three (Ray Stevenson, Tadanobu Asano, Josh Dallas), Lady Sif(Jaimie Alexander), and Loki go around and engage in battles through the realms which would give director Kenneth Branagh an opportunity to distinguish the characters from one another. Thor’s headstrong and impulsive nature could be better established along with the nature of his relationships to his entourage. Each battle would require Heimdall to open the bifröst whose energy signature would be tracked by Jane. At these moments, the movie could have cut momentarily towards Jane trying to tie the nature of the events together becoming more and more fanatically attached to it.
This would make Thor and Jane’s collision with one another and their subsequent relationship would be more believable. Jane’s differences from his usual group would be pronounced and her enthusiasm in following him would stem not from his status as a hunk but rather as living proof of her research. Furthermore, many of the latter sequences of characters explaining their motivations could be removed because hopefully those details would be fleshed out in the opening Asgard section. As the film is now, these additional bits of exposition are needed to flesh out the stakes and move the story along. Removing them would make a leaner and more cohesive overall narrative.
Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is captured by Coulson’s men.
Heimdall (Idris Elba) sees Thor’s capture.
Heimdall (Idris Elba) sees all events occurring within the 9 realms.
Branagh uses this movement once and refers to it via the character’s dialogue multiple times. I wish he stuck more to showing and utilized Heimdall’s ability to piece together plot threads to move from the Asgardian to the Earth plotlines in thematic fashion. It would make for a more visually interesting story, establish Heimdall’s power, enable the “twist” in the story better by giving it more room to grow off screen in justifiable fashion, and potentially open up the ending to more wonderous possibilities. Instead, we just get teased with a one-of that barely scratches the surface.
Frustratingly, Branagh demonstrates that he’s more than capable of interweaving between the two storylines in neat movements when he wants, but he chooses not to when it would be opportune. Heimdall, given his role as watcher of the bridge, is shown to be able to pay attention to any event happening in the nine realms. As such, certain scenes reveal that Heimdall is actually seeing them which helps the movie switch from Asgard to human and back with each. However, Branagh rarely uses the Heimdall transition technique. Instead, of utilizing the gatekeeper as a way to swap between parallel plot techniques and introduce a common visual motif, the movie is more than satisfied mentioning and using Heimdall’s skill a few times and then dropping it.
Jane (Natalie Portman) looks at the space phenomena.
Odin (Anthony Hopkins) looks at Laufey.
Selvig ( Stellan Skarsgård ) talks to Coulson.
As a horror fan, I love canted angles, but even within horror they have an established purpose to make them feel more important. Thor lacks that purpose and tosses in canted angles in every type of shot whether it be Odin engaging in war or Professor Selvig talking to Agent Coulson. This is one of the many visual issues with the film that rob its grandiose moments of the impact they would need to feel lasting.
This inconsistency in use extends to all the visual flourishes on display. At one moment Branagh will have the camera swoop from the top of Asgard to the bottom in one fluid moment, while at other moments he’ll just cut without abandon to showcase character reactions. Like previously mentioned, canted angles are on full display from start to finish. However, the choice of which scenes are shot with the tilted angles seems completely at random, rendering their selection confusing. Multiple moments will feature the change in angle and a switch back to normal for no other reason than someone fancied them. Consequently, the discord from the visual and audio swaps makes the incongruity between the Asgardian and human storylines all the more palpable. It’s all one big jumbling mess.
Therefore, while Thor isn’t quite the wreckage The Incredible Hulk is, it’s a far cry from the precise and slicked out Iron Man. It provides a plot that has points that are competently expected on their own, but it never once provides the momentum or composition capable of letting those points build off and complement one another. The end result is a grab-bag of decent points swimming around a pool of mainly bland and unmemorable scenes that teases a great film filled with familiar drama and romance but rarely delivers anywhere close on its potential.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Thor is a series of interesting ideas that fail to meld into a story that can sustain interest for longer than single scenes. The script gives the actors few moments to sell the gravitas of what’s happening – a feeling which is further undermined by the film’s own inability in determining whether or not it wants to be a serious epic of a cutesy rom-com. The end result is a film that lacks any staying power after the fact.
Rating
5.9/10
Grade
D+
Go to Page 2for the for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3to view this review’s progress report .
Edward Norton as Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Voice by Lou Ferrigno) Liv Tyler as Betty Ross William Hurt as General Ross Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky / Abomination
Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) tests his Gamma treatment on himself. Bruce transforms into the Hulk. He sees Betty (Liv Tyler) through the windows. The Hulk beats Betty (Liv Tyler) viciously, giving her serious injuries. Bruce (Edward Norton) touches Betty (Liv Tyler) tenderly. Bruce flashes back to fonder times with Betty (Liv Tyler).General Ross (William Hurt) looks at maps to locate Banner. Confidential information from Stark Industries is displayed. A metronome is shown. The camera pushes in on Betty (Liv Tyler) in her hospital bed. This montage qua vision fades as Bruce( Edward Norton) stops the metronome. Bruce (Edward Norton) has a count of the number of days between his incidents next to him. The opening montage is an narrative mess that informs the audience of very little if they don’t have context already on top of being a formal mess in the way it presents the sequence. The start of the sequence with the color tinting and longing shots of Betty would suggest that this is Bruce’s fragmented memory post incident, but shots of maps, General Ross, and confidential documents show up partway through. None of these elements are items that Bruce should be privy, so their inclusion makes it seem as though the montage is just a non-diegetic summation for the audience that has nothing to do with Bruce’s perspective. This confusion is exacerbated as the sequence ends with a push in on Betty which transforms into the ringing of the metronome that Bruce reaches out to push. It seems certain that this was his vision, but the confusion in form makes the rest of the movie harder to evaluate as a result. Case in point, the count next to him loses a lot of potential as a storytelling barometer and a way of getting the inside track of Bruce’s psyche. Instead, it just exists as a way to give the audience random updates.
The movie starts with a montage set to Craig Armstrong’s epic and triumphant score which almost tricks the viewer into thinking that the title sequence is doing something special. In reality, the 3-minute introduction sequence is a formal nightmare and makes the themes and ideas of the story hard to decipher at first. Instead of setting the film’s pace and giving it a unique voice, the introduction feels like a cheap way of getting to the “real” story.
First, the initial images of the montage make it feel like this recollection of memories is from Bruce Banner’s (Edward Norton) fragmented point-of-view. As such, the repetition of certain key scenes – namely Bruce’s partner, Betty (Liv Tyler) being injured after he transformed into the Hulk – should suggest Bruce’s pre-occupation. The scenes are even tinted in green suggesting they might be an effect of the Hulk’s influence on Banner’s brain.
However, at the halfway point of the introduction, scenes that are clearly not from Bruce’s point-of-view enter. For example, General Ross is seen looking for Bruce at one point and maps along with relevant documentation prop up on the screen to reinforce that Bruce is being hunted. Given that he’s on the run, it seems impossible that he’d be privy to this information which begs the question: why are these moments in the montage?
One could chalk it up to just quick storytelling, but the sequence ends in such a way as if to suggest that it is in fact Banner recalling his past. The montage ends as the camera pushes in on Betty’s injury before suddenly cutting to a metronome, an item featured in the montage intermittently at random moments, which Banner grabs and stops. He sits center frame and then a counter appears next to him indicating it’s been 158 days since his last “incident.” Is this counter his mental barometer now perhaps because days to him only exist if he’s not the Hulk or is it a mechanism of the movie to inform the audience of the time between transformations? Because of the sloppy nature of the montage, this determination is impossible make.
The second issue with the introduction is also an issue I expect a few readers to run into: the characters and events depicted in the montage require prior context to have any chance of being relevant to the viewer. Given that Ang Lee’s Hulk came out in 2003, it’s reasonable that Marvel and screen-writer Zak Pen wanted to avoid re-hashing the origin story and chose to truncate it; the issue is the emotional core of the story being told in The Incredible Hulk is contingent on understanding the Hulk’s origin. This issue is even more pronounced because even though The Incredible Hulk could work as a spiritual sequel to Lee’s film, there are enough differences in how Bruce gets and relates to his “Hulk” power that would justify time spent explaining the nuance to the audience.
It’s especially confusing how this movie got approved given how clear Iron Man, the first installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) , ended up being for audiences unfamiliar with the character. Coming right off the heels of one of the best super-hero movies was always going to be rough, but The Incredible Hulk doesn’t make the situation any easier for itself. The issue with the film isn’t even just the botched origin story. Unlike Marvel’s reboot of Spiderman in the form of Homecoming, which truncated the origin story which had been told twice before in the 21st century, The Incredible Hulk doesn’t try and tell a story that can ride its own coattails and get the audience invested with or without previous interest.
Betty (Liv Tyler) and Bruce (Edward Norton) reunite in the rain. Bruce (Edward Norton) laughs about putting on large purple pants that Betty (Liv Tyler) tries to get him to wear. Betty (Liv Tyler) and Bruce (Edward Norton ) argue about todo with a medal that belongs to a “her” that’s never specified. Even though it should be one of the driving forces of the film, Betty and Bruce’s relationship is anything but electric. Their scenes feature nothing but quips, meaningless banter, or references to events alluded to in the flashback montage at the start of the film that are never shown. Even after watching the film, I could not tell you why either character was in love with the other, the nature of what their relationship dynamic used to be, or why they were so willing to get back together after years of separation (especially in Betty’s case) . The movie constantly tells the audience that the couple is in love, but the duo never acts or moves in a way that suggests any real chemistry. This becomes a problem when the movie so obviously wants to rest its emotional heft on this thread and spends the screen-time on the couple that would be capable of achieving the same if done more rigorously.
For example, one of the primary driving forces behind Banner’s desire to control his Hulk state is his desire to eventually get back with Betty. This motivation is his primary purpose for any and all action within the story, outside of some vague ethical concerns about his research which are never explained. The movie tells us as much with the montage which features a moment where Banner flashbacks within the sequence qua memory recall to an even more intimate encounter with her.
Yet, when the couple finally get to talking and meeting with one another there’s absolutely no chemistry between them. Their conversations devolve to quips, useless chitter-chatter, and verbal reminders that they love each other. They’re seeing each for the first time in years and the director and screenwriter can’t think of any possible things they would want to mention to one another again? It feels more like they’re acquaintances running into one another than lovers who have been forcibly separated for years on end. The golden rule is to show and not tell, and The Incredible Hulk never shows; instead, it prefers to reiterate what was shown in the montage and use the shallow scaffolding created off those minute impressions to leverage interest in where the story goes. The couple loves each other because they love each other. The push just doesn’t work and the emotions are missing which makes caring during any of the tense sequences that much harder.
Just to give context, within 15 minutes Iron Man manages to explain its protagonist’s, Tony Stark’s motivations, relationships with key persons in the movie, primary character arc, and foreshadow the eventual final battle. In that same time frame, The Incredibly Hulk explains that Bruce has been trying to figure out to control his anger since his incident, that he thinks about Betty a lot, and then just gets to the first chase sequence in a series of many. Even by the end of the movie’s run-time, the amount of information learned doesn’t actually increase by a meaningful margin. The plot is nothing more than a vehicle to get Banner from point A to point B in the hopes for a Hulk transformation and fight.
The Hulk looks menacingly from the shadows. The Hulk looks agitated as the flames go off behind him and the water pelts. down. The Hulk sits with Betty (Liv Tyler) and is barely noticable from the background rocks. Despite showing visually arresting close-ups of the Hulk that emphasize his dangerous nature and dual personality in relation to Banner, the movie never manages to nail a fantastic long Hulk scene. The psychological divide between the angry, malicious looking Hulk and the calm and timid banner is never explored in the transformation or discussion of the phenomenon. The action and drama set-pieces that feature the Hulk often fail because the color contrast in them de-emphasizes the importance and presence of the Hulk. For example. when the Hulk is watching over Betty on the mountain ranges, he blends in with the rocks surrounding him. Even though the camera spends time on the duo, the image itself leaves very little impact.
Now, this approach would work if they either showcased the Hulk in such a way as to develop Bruce’s character and dynamic or, in a more visceral sense, just let their CGI monster go wild in dynamic action set pieces. Instead, Banner’s transformations are always marred by some other visual distraction and/or a color grading that makes it hard to distinguish his figure. He’s on the screen but doesn’t pop out and get to actually show off. Banner makes fun of the iconic purple pants his character normally wears in a meta-comedy moment, but the reason purple is a great color with the Hulk is because it lets his green shine.
This is made all the more frustrating because it’s clear that Leterrier wanted to go for a green aesthetic. Plenty of shots feature green in the set design; the issue is these greens make the contrast between Hulk and the environment even worse and end up crowding the hulking green mammoth out of the frames he should be a star in. There are a few moments where the camera lingers on a Hulk’s face in a close-up and we get to see beautiful contrasts in his face and a rich texture in the colors. Unfortunately, these moments are few and far in between; the movie usually showcases its showstopper poorly.
Thankfully, the movie spends a decent amount of time on developing Emil Blonsky(Tim Roth). We get to know him as a veteran player who takes the mission seriously and early conversations even set him as the soldier to Banner’s scientist. While the movie does very little with Banner’s scientist storyline, choosing both not to investigate why he would test the “Hulk experiment” on himself or what he wanted, it does go deeper into Blonsky’s motivations and ties his eventual transformations to his character’s’ motivations. It doesn’t matter that the character is shallow; Roth is so amped up about being cruel, militaristic, and bloodthirsty beyond reason that we can get behind his character. Woefully, the movie throws away this saving grace in the third act by replacing Roth with a CGI creature; one less performance capable of galvanizing interest in the fights to come.
Banner clicks on a simple Desktop application. He gets to a remote chat login screen where he puts in in no info. His message is automatically encrypted. The solution implemented to catch Banner is so simple that it reinforces just how lazy the messaging system was treated. One of the largest culprits of lazy storytelling comes from the way Banner communicates with Mr. Blue. It’s shown that he’s sending encrypted messages and is a sleuth who can avoid detection. However, his process of security and encryption is non-existent. He’s using the defaults on a machine that has a miracle software attached to it. The design of the application raises questions on how the government didn’t easily figure out what was happening. They easily demonstrate they can parse through every message and find a location, but we’re somehow expected to believe they couldn’t find a single mention of any issue over years of parsing that would lead back to Banner?
It’s not that the story doesn’t have interesting characters or that it can’t go towards more interesting storylines. It’s just that every story decision feels like the easiest path towards the next plot beat. Case in point, Banner communicates with a secret contact to find a cure to the “Hulk” problem. The way he gets to the contact platform is literally through clicking an application, getting to a chat screen with no place to put in long in information, and then “auto-encrypting” the chat. I don’t expect a complicated encryption process, but I expect the process to be at least be complicated enough for me to believe that the antagonists cannot easily access this information.
However, in this film, the government’s crack-job solution to the messaging platform that Banner has used for apparent YEARS is to put a simple parser out to search for the code names the two are using and then coming upon the duo almost instantly. If the introductory montage didn’t stress that Banner has been sleuthing around the government for years and that the government has been actively pursuing him as per Ross’s command, the laziness wouldn’t be so apparent. Unfortunately, this example of blatantly “rushing” towards the next plot point is one of many. A few can be handled. A litany makes for an unremarkable time. The end result is a skeleton of a espionage movie that never tries to surprise the audience.
Frustratingly, the movie has all the parts necessary to do something intriguing, but it constantly chooses to underutilize them in an attempt to deliver a product that’s “good enough.” It’s a shame because a few tweaks and the movie could have been a psychological navigation of the “Hulk” condition. The opening montage is an attempt at showing how the experiment has fractured Banner’s mind. Imagine if the movie then followed Banner as he tries to figure out a way to control it as opposed to trying to get some mumbo-jumbo cure that acts as nothing more than a MacGuffin. Additionally, the cutaways to distorted green visions, if handled with regards to Banner and the Hulk’s character arcs, could be moments of progression between them. Instead, they’re just quick visuals meant to demonstrate the presence of Banner’s condition – a fact we are well aware of.
Needless to say, the psychological angle was ready and available to dive into, even within the parameters of the script. Some of the movie’s best scenes involve the Hulk showcasing a darker, and more evil disposition. Close-ups of his face showcase an intensity that’s missing from Norton’s face. The movie could have very easily used this juxtaposition to explore even the simplest ideas of good and bad if not something more complex like the Hulk as representative of id and Banner as ego. Furthermore, the movie attempts to use fragmented green-tinted memory recollection sequences as a call-back to the opening montage and as an indication of Banner’s damaged mental state. However, just like the opening, these moments showcase images and details that tells the viewer absolutely nothing of relevance regarding Bruce’s connections or motivations. At the very least, if they presented a warped perspective of scenes, an altered perspective to Bruce’s, these moments could help develop Hulk as a character and juxtapose both sides of the green hero. Instead, the technique is used to just reinforce the same points we already know.
Sadly, there’s a severe lack of effort made at letting the characters and the actors shine through. It’s hard to blame Norton for not getting the audience invested in his character, when all he has to work with are jokes and long chase and walk sequences that are adorned with Armstrong’s rich and emotionally evocative score.
The film tries so hard to use the score to carry the weight of longer A-to-B sections, but Suspiria this movie is not; The Incredible Hulk lacks the grandiose compositions, cinematography, and editing needed to let Armstrong’s music be appreciated. The visuals are safe and milquetoast and drag down the rich and riveting score which is is never given any time to rest because any dead time has to be filled with it. Music is used used to propel all the emotional momentum in the film because the story proper doesn’t give the actors enough material to imbue their characters with passions that would get us to care about their tribulations. The score attempts to generate that momentum, but the lack of any help from any other cinematic element makes the mission impossible.
Alas, this is why The Incredible Hulk marks the low-point of the MCU. It’s a film that feels and actively shows its status as nothing more than a cog in the machine. There’s no flair in it’s presentation or composition which end up making the hollow and threadbare story look all the more lazy and shoddy when on display. The actors are given such little direction on what their characters motivations are or why those desires are they way the are and this lack of guidance carries over to the narrative which often feels like its being forcefully dragged from place to place. There are brief moments of joy, especially when the Hulk is allowed to be the star of the scene, but these moments are so brief that can’t be used to justify watching the entire movie. It’s a shame for fans of the green behemoth, but you’re better off watching later MCU installments ,Thor Ragnarok especially, or even Lee’s older Hulk for nuanced and/or visually interesting story beats.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
The Incredible Hulk is a movie that exists more to push the MCU along than anything else. Outside of Craig Armstrong’s score and a few neat shots, this chronicle of the green behemoth offers very little in terms of engaging content capable. The story is predictable, lazily told, and emotionally empty. Instead of focusing on the interesting psychological angles presented by the narrative, the movie is more than satisfied with giving just enough information to move to the next point until the whole journey is over.
Only MCU completionists or super fans of the Hulk should give this a watch.
Rating
4.3
Grade
F
Go to Page 2for the for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3to view this review’s progress report .
Robert Downey Jr.as Tony Stark Terrence Howard as James “Rhodey” Rhodes Gwyneth Paltrow as Virginia “Pepper” Potts Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane Shaun Toubas as Yinsen
AC/DC’s “Back in Black” plays from Tony’s personal radio which looks out of place in the tank.
Tony sees one of his company’s missiles land next to him.
Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) is punctured by the blast shrapnel as the blinding sun hovers over him.
The sun fades to a blinding light source.
Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) is captured by the 10 Rings.
The opening of the movie establishes that we’re in a desert. The tank convoy seems to be subsumed by the environment around it. This imposing environment is disrupted as we cut to the tank Tony is in. His personal boombox blasts rock music in protests against the silent environment as he likewise tries to coax the nervous soldiers around him into becoming more jovial. This fun is immediately shattered as Tony is grievously injured by one of his own missiles. He wakes up from his injury captured by a terrorist group at which point the movie cuts to 36 hours in the past.
We start in media res as Tony Stark( Robert Downey Jr.) , a billionaire inventor and weapons manufacturer, tries to ease the tension in a tank full nervous soldiers. His jovial and comedic décor feels as out of place in the vehicle as the presence of AC/DC’s “Back in Black” does playing in the soundscape of a barren wasteland (from a diegetic source at that: Tony’s personal radio); a rock and roll persona and sound trying to make their impact felt in a war-torn environment seems the perfect analogy for the story to come.
Tony’s presence breaks through to the soldiers who finally feel at ease with his celebrity behavior. A soldier asks to take a picture and puts up a peace sign to which Tony comments that it’s because of peace that he’s still in business; weapons in war are needed for eventual tranquility. The soldier puts up the peace sign for the picture at which point the convoy is ambushed, the soldiers are killed, and Tony experiences firsthand the devastation of his own weapons as one of his missiles lands near him, explodes, and sends shrapnel straight into his chest. A peace achieved through war imploding as peace breaks to war. Poetic.
The screen dissolves from the blinding hot sun Tony stares at while bleeding out to a lighting fixture. We cut to Tony being held hostage in a cave by terrorist figures. The title card drops and we go back in time 36 hours to when Tony was living the life we’d expect of a “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist”. He misses a conference in his honor in lieu of gambling with groupies. He deflects criticism of his war profiteering with quips and flirtatious machinations. Any serious matter meets him and turns into something fun-filled and fantastic instead, but we know how his story will eventually go.
While the structure of the opening isn’t as ambitious as something like Nolan’s Batman Begins (which also starts in media res), but extends the layering of different timelines to more effectively demonstrate its protagonists core traits and paths forward for growth, it does a good enough job of keeping the audience enthused and invested in Tony’s journey. We know how Tony’s character traits have led him to where he is and as such can better appreciate and focus on his development through the film. It’s at this point we return to Tony in his current situation, trapped by a terrorist group who demands he make them the same weapons that he sells the United States.
Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) poses with a solider who puts up a peace sign.
Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) puts up a peace sign while being rescued.
The peace sign transforms from a hollow symbol that Tony references as being the end goal of his military inventions to being the driving force motivating him to remove his weapons from the wrong hands. The sign previously held by the soldier becomes more personal to Tony; he’s now authentically pursuing peace.
With the help of another trapped scientist, Yinsen (Shaun Toubas), Tony manages to create and escape in an armored suit attached with a variety of weapons. It’s in this “iron man” suit that he escapes from the compound after setting it to flames. After an trek in the desert, he is found by the military. He puts up the peace sign again – the first time since he put it up jokingly with the soldier earlier- with a real understanding of the dark side of the price paid to achieve it and newfound mission : removing his companies weapons from the hands of criminals and terrorists.
Even though the story’s beats feels well-trodden now, they still manage to remain unique and captivating in an sea of Iron Man copy-cats (many of which are done by Marvel themselves). In some part, this is due to Iron Man’s successful lifting story elements from – and I don’t mean to beat a dead horse here – Batman Begins, which is in many ways the archetypal super-hero origin story. Executing the flashback start, a protagonist struggling to maintain a balance between their sense of duty and their humanity, and an antagonist set-up that operates on multiple layers in a way that’s compelling would already make Iron Man a fantastic mimicry with an interesting enough set of themes (namely the duplicity of the military industrial complex), but what pushes and sets it apart from both Batman Begins is its absolute commitment to making the human part of the story real. No character, from Tony’s friends to the man himself, comes off overly serious (Batman Begins) or overly campy (Batman & Robin). Instead each of them feels grounded and genuine, both in the way they carry themselves and the way they deal with Tony’s subsequent decisions.
It’s surprising then, to learn that the movie followed a very bare-bones script and required the actors and directorJon Favreau to improvise many scenes on the day of [1] Woerner, M. (2015, December 16). Jeff bridges Admits Iron Man movie had no script. Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/jeff-bridges-admits-iron-man-movie-had-no-script-5417310. You wouldn’t be able to infer based on the fluidity and cohesiveness that the actors are interacting with little planning which is a mark of praise for everyone involved. The end result is a movie where all the characters interact and come off of one another in a smooth non-manufactured way. The quips we’re used to now in Marvel movies feel far more authentic here because they naturally arise from the situation as opposed to feeling like an attempt at controlling our emotional response to the situation. It helps that in comparison to Tony almost every other character is quip-less which makes Tony’s zingers more prominent and distinct in comparison to the dialogue happening around him. The result is a movie where almost every character is one we can believe if not get behind allowing us to suspend our disbelief at the comic-book extremities and sip the superhero smoothie with ease.
In particular, the relationship between Tony and his secretary/love-interest, Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) propels the movie in a way that previous entries in the super-hero genre have felt lacking. The friendship between the two is established in the first flashback and lets us know that they have a long and storied history with each other and are aware of each others mannerisms. It’s clear there might be something there, but we know it won’t work because of Tony’s traits; he’s egoistical, unable to remember basic things (like Pepper’s birthday), and is focused on fully enjoying and embracing his status as billionaire playboy. The subtle nuances in their interactions are a result of both Downey Jr.’s and Paltrow’s fantastic ability to play off another – their chemistry feels palpable. The sense of progression he works on pursuing his new goals and begins to change, Pepper (and us the audience) and his relationship serves as a kind of barometer on his character growth.
Additionally, Tony’s growth is characterized by his suit in a literal sense. At the start of the movie, he is impaled by shards from a stolen missile of his. The weapon he made to stand for peace thus threatens to take that very peace away from him in every way. These shards are held at bay with an arc reactor he makes with Yinsen. This shining bright circle in the middle of Tony’s chest is the heart of his suit, powering the machine, is necessary in keeping his literal heart beating, and is the start of his first real human interaction in the form of Yinsen thereby representing a more metaphorical heart. He goes through a few reactor changes; each scene involving them is matched with a similar movement in his character – the fact that Pepper is so intimately involved with this motif in particular adds to Tony’s humanity as well, ultimately giving the movie it’s staying power in a sea of superhero movies.
Unfortunately, the thing holding the movie back from the highest echelon of the genre is how safe the movie plays with some of the unique elements it introduces. The start of the movie primes us to get ready for a rock infused score that coincides with Tony’s aura at the moment. I kept hoping that the music would continue as a motif; something like a different style of rock for different moods and progressions would have been interesting. Instead, the rock music is used sporadically and we hear a generic feeling score in the background [2]This shocked me given the composer is Ramin Djawadi whose Game of Thrones score I absolutely adore. I wish he could have captured more of the badass, independent, rocker vibe we get from the actual … Continue reading Likewise, the propulsive energy and clever plot development that defines the majority of the movie comes to a bit of a hiccup near the climax when the story decides to capitulate to cliché that it had no need to give in to. It’s not that the final clash is horrible or unsatisfying; there are clever callbacks littered through this sequence and the way it concludes is neat in the context of certain motifs. It just feels like it betrays possible clever ways out in favor of an option that’s totally unnecessary.
It’s a testament to the cast and crew that even over a decade into the Marvel franchise, Iron Man stands up as one of the better movies responsible for laying down an effective formula that the studio has been using in it’s movies ever since. The action scenes and many of the more “quiet”[3] By quiet, I mean the slower suit transformation sequences that feature less action but still look awesome. digital effects scene still have that same wonderous (and now as time has passed, endearing) effect years later because their aim is to create the same propulsive feeling found in comic books proper. While it may no longer be as “shiny” as it once was, Iron Man is still a movie you can put on and have a great time with.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Iron Man is proof that some gambles are worth taking. Though the movie started as an un-scripted grab-bag of ideas, the end result is anything but – feeling as slick as the Iron Man suit Tony Stark adorns. By focusing on creating an immersive and lived-in world from the geopolitical discussions to the nuanced way characters work off one another, Favreau and his team managed to create one of the most “humane” super movies. It may not be as flashy as some of the best in the genre, but it’s staying power stems from the heart feeling it generates. It’s simply a great time.
Rating
8.6/10
Grade
B+
Go to Page 2for the for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3to view this review’s progress report .
Woerner, M. (2015, December 16). Jeff bridges Admits Iron Man movie had no script. Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/jeff-bridges-admits-iron-man-movie-had-no-script-5417310.
This shocked me given the composer is Ramin Djawadi whose Game of Thrones score I absolutely adore. I wish he could have captured more of the badass, independent, rocker vibe we get from the actual rock songs.
