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Jon Favreau

Iron Man 2 – Jon Favreau (2010)

Iron Man / Tony Stark is not exactly my favourite Marvel character, so I skipped the “Iron Man” movies so far. Actually. In “Iron Man 2” he is not so bad. Perhaps because he is a bit of the tragic character.

In “Iron Man 2” we have both Gwyneth Paltrow (as Pepper of course) and Scarlett Johansson (as Natalie Rushman / Natasha Romanoff, apparently not yet “Black Widow“) which is a plus. And Mickey Rourke is an amusing bad guy. We also see the dawn of the Avengers, as Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) yet has to recruit Iron Man for his team.

For the rest, Iron Man is hunted by Ivan Vanko, plus the competition tries to outsmart him. Together these opponents wreck havoc which Iron Man sets right, without the help of the other Avengers, as that team appears to be non-existent yet.

So perhaps “Iron Man 2” fits in the larger Marvel story and was it a good idea to watch it after all. I suppose I might now also watch “Iron Man 3” (2013).

Iron Man – Jon Favreau (2008)

  • action

If I am not mistaken, this was the first Marvel film. Nothing of the big story/stories here. Just the story of weapons manufacturer and playboy Tony Stark who finds out that not just the ‘good guys’ have his weapons. He decides his company needs change.

Stark was abducted by terrorists. To escape, he builds an iron suit. Back home he decides to use that idea to make a more advanced version of that suit, which becomes his fighting and flying machine that makes him Iron Man.

Within his own company Stark turns out to have enemies as well, especially when he wants to steer his company into another direction. That adversary builds a similar suit to fight Stark.

“Iron Man” is a more typical action film than the other Marvel films that I saw so far. There is also more humor in it. It is amusing, but tells me little about the ‘Marvelverse’, safe -of course- the birth of Iron Man. But you have to start somewhere.

Cowboys & Aliens – Jon Favreau (2011)

Seldom does the title of a film refer so clearly to the genre, or in this case genres. Indeed, this film is a mix between Western and scifi.

There is not too much of a story, but in a Western town with much hostility among its inhabitants, spacecrafts arrive to terrorize the town. A number of townsmen and -women are kidnapped and a party sets out to find them.

A fairly typical Hollywood film unfolds with Daniel Graig and Harrison Ford as stars, the only not-so-Hollywood element is the unlikely mix of genres. This is not presented all that surprisingly though and actually they go together fairly well.

Not a great film, but entertaining.

Iron Man * Jon Favreau (2008)

  • action

I felt like watching some entertaining comic action, but I actually thought that “Iron Man” combined comic and film. In fact “Iron Man” is an action film based on a comic with no handdrawn ‘comic-elements’. There is over the top action with the ‘iron man’ that the main character builds, especially towards the end.
The story is quite actual. Tony Stark (Robert Downey) is a manufacturer of weapons and in the Middle East he finds out that his weapons are not only used to defend America. He decides that his business needs a new approach. There are a couple of funny scenes and the comic-story action is amusing. Stark’s assistent Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a reason to watch the film as well.