The Invincible Iron Man

'Part 2 of an Animated Weekend'

Iron Man is the third movie in a four movie deal so far with Lionsgate and Marvel Enterprises. The other two being the animated films, The Ultimate Avengers: The Movie and The Ultimate Avengers 2: Rise of the Panther. Both of the previous films were decent films that didn't create any groundbreaking material, but were small and well done films that felt very tight storywise and brought out a little old school nostalgia by creating a similar feel as the JLA or G.I.Joe cartoon depending on the scene. Iron Man was to be the first of these films to focus on a singular character instead of a team. And after having now seen the film, I can admit that they get somethings correct about the famous hero and they get many things about making a cartoon film wrong.

The film is of course based on the Marvel comic franchise of the same name and the story is based around the struggle between Iron Man and The Mandarin. Actually, The Mandarin never completely makes it back to our world, but his presence and archaic essence is felt. I'm afraid I will have to compare this film to Hellboy. Both films contain a typical anti-hero. Both use eastern styled folklore to create a story. Plus, both have ridiculously huge fight scenes. The problem is that Hellboy executes better in all three categories. I have felt that Iron Man's focus on folklore for the film is entirely against the basis of the Iron Man character. Iron Man aka Tony Stark is the boozing brilliant engineer/heir to the multimillion Stark enterprises. In other words, he's essentially a Marvel version of Batman. His need to create Iron Man has always stemmed from a realistic need in his world. To turn around and give a very grounded character a mythological character negates the gravity of the story and makes it feel very flimsy and silly. As for the folklore itself, while Hellboy seems to pay homage to the stories of Japan, Iron Man seems to stereotype and typify the Chinese culture as a dangerous place full of radicals and crazy haunted dictators with elementals that looks for his rings. It's actually quite insulting to watch. One slightly sane character does not make up for the hordes of Jade terrorists. My biggest gripe with the story, though, actually is the most obvious and annoying. The story is chock full of terrible shove-a-stick-through-my-clavicle dialogue. TERRIBLE!! Granted, the plot is a typical bleh cartoon plot with typical twists and endings, bad enough but not terrible. What makes it unbearable is how cliche everything becomes when accented by the dialogue. Although, putting aside this major issue, the script gets a couple of things correct. It does an excellent job of developing the relationship between Stark and Rhodes. It also does a great job of portraying the offensive nature of Stark as a human being. It even gets the introduction of the Iron Man suit in the film pretty well done. Yet, these few graces do not make up for the lack of ability to establish relationships and to bring the story to life. The cinematagraphy is uninteresting and typical. Hopefully these same issues and this same director will not be around for the next film, Doctor Strange.

As for the voice acting, Marc Worden does a decent job bringing Tony Stark to life. However, there are times where the actor falls prone to the Episode III Vader syndrome...yes, that's right, NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I realize that voice acting is hard to do, but this plus the problem of creating believable relationships makes me think someone else might have been a better choice. In fact, the only voice actor who puts in a quality job is Rodney Saulsberry as Rhodey. Everyone else just feels so-so and sometimes lackluster. Especially the angry Chinese character. The only real challenging sections of the film were the moments of carnage and gun shots.

Conclusion:
I applaud Marvel's past efforts to try and appeal to all demographics in these animated movies, but more thought and time should go into the creation of the films. I would also appreciate a film that tries to show an interesting story that is viablely well created. The only well-done aspect of this film, was the sound and how it affects the scenes. Make sure the voice actors can do a good job and lastly, try to appeal to the world without being generic. That is the greatest fault of this film while adding the ability to be insulting to cultures. Skip it and wait for Doctor Strange. Or The Amazing Screw On Head, another dvd by creator Mike Mignola that looks sufficiently funny and actually the trailer outshone this whole movie. Instead of applauding this film, I'm just disappointed.

1.85 out of 5

Wannabe