The Invincible Iron Man by Frank D. Paur (2007)
5 June 2008I was really looking forward to this after not only the excellent Iron Man feature film (which has caused me to go back and start reading all the old Iron Man Comics) and having watched these guys Doctor Strange, which I enjoyed. Unfortunately it seems that I may have liked the film more because I knew so little about the Sorcerer Supreme, because this retelling of Iron Man, feels like something where the writers knew nothing about Iron Man, except Character names and a few points, but really missed the point all together of so many things. Honestly I wanted to finish this, but it felt like it was perverting Iron Man so much that really had trouble getting through film. It is really that bad. Characters are totally not like they were, Tony Stark’s father is alive, and trying to kick him out of the company, Jim Rhodes is an Engineer, the Mandarin was an ancient emperor with 5 rings instead of a megalomaniac with 10 Alien Rings, and in this when Stark builds his first Armor, he has already made like 50 more in secret, it just gets lamer and lamer. Honestly I can’t believe that Marvel OK’ed this. I mean the computer graphics of the Iron Man armor are pretty cool, but the 5 enemy Elementals look just terrible, barely interacting with the backgrounds, and the characters and writing are laughable at best, and a perversion of everything that was good about Iron Man. Stay away from this at all costs!
The film starts with the Engineer Jim Rhodes (Rodney Saulsberry) is working for playball industrialist Tony Stark (Marc Worden) but having major troubles with a project to raise an ancient Chinese city of the Mandarin, with a group of revolutionaries attacking them and stealing their equipment, but Stark can’t be bothered. When Stark manages to extricate himself from a girl a a drink in a hot tub, he heads to a corporate meeting, where his father Howard Stark (John McCook), and the board of director’s votes to kick him out of the company for wasting money on the Chinese excavation (even though it has brought in 20 times that amount in investment from the Chinese government) and some secret project. Stark then hears from his assistant Pepper Potts (Elisa Gabrielli, British here, and so not interested in Tony) that the excavation was attacked, and Rhodey is missing, so Tony heads to China.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
Tony arrives, and takes a convoy of tanks to the site, but they are attacked by the rebels on the way using Stark weapons, and he is captured, with a badly injured heart. And old monk and Rhodes make Stark an Iron Lung, and when he awakens they build him a small one that fits in his chest. The rebel leader comes in, and tells them that they will build him a device to re-sink the city, as they are a group determined to stop the Mandarin from rising again, and they have already killed everyone else. The only kind person they meet is the beautiful but troubled Li Mei (Gewndoline Yeo) who treats them well.
Tony and Rhodey work on making Iron Man armor, while pretending to make the device. The Monk gives Tony a map to the 4 rings of the Mandarin that were hidden by ancient Monks around the world, and then distracts the guards enough that they can get the armor working. Tony and Rhodey are going to escape, and try to get Li Mei to go, but she refuses, just wanting Tony out of their, though from an image, his armor may be the only thing that can defeat the Mandarin when he returns.
Tony and Rhodey return to the US, but a group of Shield agents (looking like the MIB) are there to arrest them for charges of weapons dealing, which they did not, but they escape, and with Peppers help get into Tony’s office, and into his secret lab, which is filled with already created Iron Man armor.
In China the elementals of the Mandarin have risen, and are causing havok as they go around trying to recover the lost rings of their master.
Tony takes underwater armor and heads to get the first ring, though he is attacked, and barely escapes. The second time he goes to a volcano and manages to get a ring.
He confronts his father and realizes his father sent the weapons that were stolen and construed as weapons sales. Li Mei appears, and Tony can no longer get to his lab, so they steal the plane he retuned in, with Tony’s first armor in it. Tony battles the elementals, and gets 4 rings, which he gives to Li Mei, and then fights the 5th elemental, but she puts them on heads into the temple, and raises the Mandarin. It seems she was always trying to bring the Mandarin back, as she is his last descendent.
Tony defeats the last elemental then goes in to find Li Mei, and finds her having raised the Mandarin (Fred Tatasciore), and must fight them both, but is losing until he convinces her that she loves him, and she takes off the rings and destroys the Mandarin once again, and the city sinks into the ground.
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YOU ARE KIDDING ME RIGHT? I CAN’T BELIEVE JUST HOW BAD THIS WAS! I AM NOT SURE IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE! WOW I REALLY REALLY HATES THIS!!!
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