a review by the Azure-Winged Magpie!
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GUESS WHO’S BACK?! Thaaasss right! It’s us! WOOHOO! WAHEYYY!
Well… like… I’M BACK! You lot are gonna have to wait a while for the Crow.
Note: This post was originally written a few months ago, so there might be some anarchi– anachronisms in here. I’m not changin’ nuttin’! Bite me!
Click here to skip to the review
Now, first things first! What’s going on here? I’m gonna talk about what’s going on in a Team Update soon if the Crow doesn’t get around to one first, but the short of it is that we’ve had a bit of a messy problem over the last few months. We’re trying to get everything “sorted out” ASAP and even though we’re reshuffling a lot right now, but we’ll be back on track (with as few bumps and scrapes as we can!) before you can say–
Okaywait. I’m not going to do that. This might take a while…
ButFIRST! Let’s talk about what I’m here to talk about! Leading up to Infinity War, mummy-Magpie‘s going to review ALL SOME OF the MCU films we don’t have up already, in order, for The Corvid Review. And where do we start? We start right here, with…
The first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe! Iron Man!
OPENING THOUGHTS
So. It’s the Crow of the MCU up in this one. I mean… they got a lot in common.
- Science-nerd? Check ✔
- Engineer? Check ✔
- Bag of d***s? Check ✔
- Bit of a c***? Check ✔
- Able to save the day? Nope X
Another few differences are: Tony Stark is better-looking, adorable-r, and really more of a smarmy know-it-all than just a d*** like some people I know.
(If you lot can’t tell, we’ve been kinda fighting behind-the-scenes.)
BUT! All that can wait for another day. Iron Man is the first film in the MCU. Read this for a good run-down of how things used to be.
Myself? I didn’t know much about this dude before this film came out. I mean, sure. I knew he was like this Lannister-coloured-robot-armoured tech-whiz who once done bumped the ugly with his own suit, but that was ’bout it. Oh, and I heard he knew how to keep one’s self healthy, too… because too much blood in one’s alcohol-stream makes one a sad person, after all.
(◔◡◔✿)hic!
And how did the MCU kick things off with this film for someone like me (who barely knew about this fella)? Well, let’s take a Magpie-zoomed look at how they did, you birdies and humans and delicious fishies!
I love that tune!
METAL PERSON SUPER! [Premise/Plot]
WARNING: THIS SECTION CONTAINS MODERATE SPOILERS
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr my bae) is a magnificent bastard. ’nuff said. Man’s in Afghanistan, all suited-and-booted, selling weapons and makin’ dough. He shows off his new cluster/scatter missile like a boss, and glugs his whisky on the rocks out of a cryo-box.
But just as he’s about to head off home all ready to collect his paycheque, when…
(ʘ _ ʘ✿)oh noes!
He’s KIDNAPPED! These “Ten Rings” terrorist bastids drag him off to a cave network after a few snappy action scenes in which bae Tony gets injured real bad. And when he wakes up, they tell him: “make us one of them cluster bombs and we’ll let you go!” Simple. No?
Well… you lot know he’s gonna have to leg it, now.
Lucky for Tony, while he was down n’ out, another prisoner, Yinsen (Shaun Toab), fixed him up by plugging a f***ing electro-magnet into his chest to stop some shrapnel Tony picked up from digging down into his heart and killing him (I guess it makes sense). And… hang on a minute… did I just say “Lucky for Tony”?! What part of having an empty soup-can shoved into your middle bit with a magnet in it sounds LUCKY?!
So… he ded. That’s it. He just… ded.
…
…
JUST KIDDING!
OF COURSE SOMEONE AS HANDSOME AS TONY STARK AIN’T DED!
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So, here’s the “lucky” bit: the magnet’s gonna need batteries, see? Yinsen hooked the magnet up to a car battery, but we all know how reliable those things can be. After a few beatings and dips in the drink for motivation (!), they decide to go ahead and start building this rocket for the baddies.
BUT FIRST!
Yinsen and Tony make out like they’re busy with the job they’ve been told to do. But what they’re REALLY doing is teaming up to MacGuyver together this glowy-magic thing-a-ma-jig called an Arc Reactor to power Tony’s heart-magnet so that he doesn’t need the car battery. (I mean… the dude’s a chick magnet, so… poetry?!)
I’m so so sorry… Not in good form, today…
And once they’ve whipped this thing together, they move on to building the… “rocket”… And what the heck does this “rocket” they’re building end up as?
See, these two brainy-folk know that there ain’t no getting away home-safe, so while they’re making out they’re putting together one of those boom sticks the terrorists want, they only go ahead and build…
…a GIANT SUIT OF ARMOURED ROBOTIC AWESOMENESS instead!
Now… hang on a minute.
This is what WE do for a living. WE build flying death thingies (well… okay, they’re not meant to be death-thingies, but if one drops out of the sky whilst you’re in it, don’t blame us! Not our fault you lot don’t have wings!). But… how TF could these people fake building a GIANT SUIT OF ARMOURED ROBOTIC AWESOMENESS while pretending to work on a MISSILE?! THAT’S NOT HOW THAT WORKS!
Just how daft are these terrorists?!
Breaks my loony head, that does…
Aaanyway… they slap this thing together like a pair-o MacGuyvers, and before you know it… the terror-bastids are all up in their business looking for their shiny new boom-stick. But guess what? Tony’s all good to go and SUITS UP! (Or more like clanks together, kinda.) Aaand…
You know what time it is!
It’s random-goon-beatin’-time!
Not to give too much away because of spoilers and the like, buuut… he rampages through the terrorists, busts a couple-of goons, and heads on home by way of the US Army after getting dumped by his over-worked and under-paid robo-suit in the desert.
And this is where things REALLY kick off!
So, let’s go over the rest of this quick-like since I’m feeling like going ahead with my MCU round-up ahead of Infinity War.
By the time Tony gets home, he’s already figured out something is very, VERY wrong with his company (which he got from his daddykins). You see, Tony’s been too much of a playful tot. He’s never really looked into what his company really does with all those weapons they build. And what did he see when he got his torso perforated like a delicious piece of frozen tofu out there in the desert?
Oh, just that the boom-stick that perforated him had this stamped on the side:
STARK Industries
He tries to be a good boy and shut down the weapons division so that he can focus on the arc-reactor he built with Yensin in the cave and turn it into a “bright light for all humanity” cough. And ain’t nobody really happy with him.
(See: that’s just how things work far as you hoomins are concerned. You stop rich people’s cash-flow, and things go all the way down, down, down on a scale of good = high, bad = low. You lot could learn a LOT from us, y’know?)
His mentor/surrogate father figure Obidiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) ain’t none too pleased with Tony, neither, but tries to smooth things out both with Tony and the press (and doesn’t get a cheeseburger) and tries to keep the company from going bust.
But we all know… someone‘s out to get Tony. And what can poor little Tony do about these big bad shadowy people who’re upset about him not handing out boom-sticks no more?
(◔ワ◔✿)!
Well, wouldn’t ya have thunked it? Tony’s now all obsessed with his Tin-man routine, like most mad scientists do. And he starts going all Lannister up in this business, settling his “debts” and having fun.
And hoo boy, is he DOWN TO THROW DOWN!
Suit up, hoomins and birdies and delicious fishies! It’s time to sit back and let this handsome mo-[REDACTED]-er dish out some IRON JUSTICE and take back what’s HIS.
TIN-MAN THOUGHTS
So, this one’s a fun ride from start-to-finish. It’s what it says it is on the tinlololololol : a film about a man who puts on a powered suit and beats up baddies like a boss.
The story’s pretty much the same as your general superhero origin film goes, and there’s nothing really special there. It’s a lot of fun watching bae-Jr be a cocky dick to everyone he meets in the beginning. Then continue to be a cocky dick while he’s becoming the caring good guy we want our heroes to be. And then turn that cocky dick-ishness up to INFINITY right at the end when he goes up against the big bad of the film.
And I really, REALLY liked the villain. Even the two-bit villian who we barely see in the film is pretty swell for the few minutes he’s in it. All the side characters and the baddies work with and around Tony Stark so much better than in most superhero films (back then and even now).
I never really liked the original Spider-Man series, but I didn’t hate them. And everyone seems real happy with the side characters in those movies (especially in the second one). But I thought that Iron Man did a MUCH better job with these people than any of those films.
It’s been 10 years since this one hit theatres, and I’ll tell you what: when watching it the other day, I gotta say that Iron Man still looks pretty fresh. It’s one of those films I think people can watch again and again every other month if they feel like it, and it never gets THAT old.
And then we get to the ENDING.
(Gentle!) Spoiler Below
(◔ _ ◔✿)…
…WHAT THE $#£*£?!
When I first watched this film, I had NO idea about any sort of “expanded universe” or anything! I thought it’d be a one-off! And GUESS WHAT?! They started setting this shit up before Iron Man even started filming!
This ONE ballsy move jumps the film up A WHOLE POINT. There was no guarantee they were ever going to be able to see it through, and they went for it anyway.
Even though I didn’t know too much about the character or the comics at the time, this had me HOOKED.
Well played, Marvel, you clever bastids, you!
FINAL RATINGS
So yeah. This is GOOD. Sit down and watch it if you haven’t already! It’ll be a fun afternoon. Swear down.
THE AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE: 8.5/10
THE CROW: 7/10
Here’s the official poster:
T H E _ C O R V I D _ R E V I E W 
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