MCU Rewatch: Phase One, Part 1

Oh, hey there.  I’m rewatching the MCU movies.  Again.  Gonna throw some stuff up here as I go.  No real structure involved, certainly not any attempts at traditional reviews…  I mean, does the world need another real review of Iron Man eleven years after it first repulsor-beamed everyone’s faces off?  No.  Just some thoughts and impressions.  We’ve all seen these movies.

I am fully up to date with the releases, having seen Spider-Man: Come From Away Far From Home last week, so yeah- there might be some discussion of the latter flicks here and there, but I’mma try to keep it self-contained to each of the movies.  As best I can.  No promises.

IRON MAN

“Heavy boots of lead/Somethingsomethingsomething that rhymes with ‘lead.'”

-John “Ozzy” Osbourne

Still great after all these years.  Marvel took a chance on a superhero story not about a down-on-his-luck good guy who finally gets the chance to shine, but on an entitled jerkwad who is forced to take a long, hard look in the mirror and reap all the chaos his drunken ignorance has helped to sow.  Watching this again after Avengers: Endgame was a complete delight in that it was somehow even more thrilling, intriguing, and inspirational than the first time.  Bravo, Marvel- you totally win.

And the funny thing is that the action sequences aren’t even the most exciting parts of the film.  Instead it’s the scenes of Tony Stark sitting around inventing things in his garage that keep me glued to the screen.  This is, of course, in no small part due to the perfect casting of Robert Downey Jr. in the role (maybe even forcing a meta-narrative that mirrors the actor’s own life and career).  RDJ kills it in every scene.  And the supporting cast is pitch-perfect in their chemistry with him (I’m especially looking at you, Gwyneth, you talented kook).

Speaking of the supporting cast, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge how good Jeff Bridges is as Obadiah Stane.  Even having seen this movie so many times (so many) I find myself understanding his frustration when Tony makes it home and decides to make the fundamental “no more weapons” change in company policy.  After all, Stane has a business to run, employees to pay, and the press to deal with.  And he does so with such an unflappable, calm confidence that I want to keep rooting for the guy.  But then, of course, we get the reveal of his true intentions in the scene where Stane visits the leader of the Ten Rings, still holding on to that cool countenance as he paralyzes him and orders his men to be murdered.  Seriously, get this villain a Bond movie, stat!  There’s a scene later on, though, that contains my favorite JB moment here.  It’s a quick bit where he berates his head scientist* for failing to build a version of Tony’s mini arc reactor.  Stane becomes quite the physically imposing figure as he literally corners the smaller, meek man with an accusatory finger and a raised voice that effectively shows the first cracks in his consistently collected demeanor.  It’s startling and more than a little bit menacing.  A very “whoa, what’s wrong with dad?”-type moment.  Very un-Dude.

Unfortunately for Bridges, the movie has gotten a little long in the tooth, runtime-wise, at this point, so shit gets wrapped up REALLY quickly after this bit with lots of punches, explosions, and Stane devolving into a madman who spouts angry lines like a Bad Guy with a capital BG.  It’s not a horrible action finale, in fact it’s quite good at showing Stark’s “brains-over-brawn, protect the innocent” approach to winning this thing, but it is definitely a left turn after Iron Man’s carefully curated first and second acts.

But, hey, considering it was 2008 and this Uncertain Grand Experiment by Marvel was just crawling out of the primordial cinematic ooze, I’d say they pretty much knocked it out of the park.

Jesus Christ, Costello.  Make Mine Mixed Metaphors.

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THE INCREDIBLE HULK

“There’s a place in the world for the angry young man…”

-William Martin Joel

I love how stripped down this movie is. Quick, and to the point. Thank god most of those improvved Ed Norton/Liv Tyler scenes (they’re collected on the Blu) were cut before its release. The last thing we need is more forced, awkward ennui in a movie about a meek nerd who turns into a giant green monster every time he stubs his toe, or whatever.

Leterrier’s use of color theory here is particularly great.  Red, the opposite of green, seems to be a protective color.  There’s quite a bit of it on display in the Brazil sequences, most notably in Banner’s hoodie.  When he runs from Ross and his commandos he’s wearing it, which I think, subconsciously, we’re supposed to take as his way of containing the monster within.  But he eventually makes his way into the factory which, from the bottles of soda to the lockers to the walls, is just too green for comfort.  And when he’s caught it’s a guy wearing stark yellow and another wearing rich blue that hold him down as his “bully” punches him past the point of no return.  Because yellow and blue… well, you get it.  By the end of the second act Bruce is seen in more blue hues, as if he’s moving closer to accepting what he is.  Then, at the end, in the final shot of Banner, when he has come to terms with his situation and seeks to control rather than repress the monster within- green shirt, green pants.

I dunno.  Maybe that’s all a bit of a stretch on my part.  But I notice the colors every time.

Also, I still maintain that the aforementioned Brazil action sequence, culminating in the first appearance of the Hulk, is the best of the entire MCU run.  Yes, there have been bigger, more choreographed moments since then with multiple heroes, waves of villains, massive setpieces, etc… but there is a real confluence of cinematic technique on display here, from cinematography to editing to acting, to location, to screenwriting, mostly without the use of CG (beyond the title character, of course) that is so satisfying to watch.  It’s been built up so well throughout the previous scenes (that heart-rate monitoring wristband MacGuffin is a complete stroke of genius) that from the moment Banner senses Ross and his men have arrived to the moment he’s forced to Hulk out we get a real white-knuckler of an exponentially fast-paced, from-bad-to-worse thrill ride of a chase sequence that is easy to follow, yet complex enough to not feel predictable.  And, of course, the cherry on top is the ensuing Batman-esque first “appearance” of the Hulk, stalking the stalkers from the shadows and taking them all out as if they were just toys.

You know, I’ll be sure and pay attention to this moving forward, but, for now, I’ll just go ahead and call the first 30 minutes of The Incredible Hulk the most satisfying first act in all of the MCU.

The rest of the movie?  It’s… fine.  Sort of boilerplate, narrative-wise.  Guy goes back to girl, because true love, seeks help from a questionable source, because science, is forced into violence again, because military.  The Blonsky/Ross stuff is really good, thanks mostly to it being a Roth/Hurt joint.  One moment always stands out- Blonsky’s first foray into being a super-soldier guinea pig.  The sound design and his face-acting culminate in a squirmer of a moment when a giant needle that we (and he) don’t see enters his spine… and then cracks through something else… and UGH my fingers are literally curling up just thinking about it.

The final fight sequence in Harlem is a jumbled mess of punching, explosions, and car crashes.  Much like Iron Man’s final fight.  I feel like it’s a general issue with these early movies- great pacing and character development over the first 90 minutes (give or take), then lots of BAM! POW! SMASH!  It probably happens beyond Phase One, too.  I’ll keep an eye out.

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IRON MAN 2

“It takes a lot to make a stew/Especially when it’s me and you/And him and Steve from corporate, too/Too many cooks, it’s true.”

-Casper Kelly

This movie is maybe the most unfairly maligned of the entire series.  Is it a bottom-tier MCU flick?  Sure.  But bad?  No way, José.

The biggest problem is there’s just so much happening here.  Too much.  Taken separately, all of it’s pretty great- the government trying to get its hands on the Iron Man tech, Tony relapsing into his old, a-hole self in the wake of his new health issues, Tony trying to figure out the tech solution for said issues, Pepper Potts transitioning to CEO, Rhodey trying to balance his personal and military life as Tony’s best friend, Justin Hammer as the bumbling anti-Tony, Ivan Vanko as a sort of “sins of the father” threat.  And I think Favreau did a pretty good job of weaving all of these threads into a cohesive tapestry… but then came the S.H.I.E.L.D. that broke the camel’s back- namely the Black Widow/Nick Fury thing.  Of all the plot threads going on here, the S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff is, by a wide margin, the most superfluous.  It adds nothing to the story at hand, existing solely to set up a future hero team-up.  But it’s a Catch-22- weaving that stuff into IM2 complicates an already complicated narrative, but to leave it out might have made the meta narrative of the MCU in its ramp-up to The Avengers suffer.  I don’t know at what point S.H.I.E.L.D was threaded into the story, but it at least feels like a late-stage screenplay addition.  It’s an issue that the MCU seems to have mostly smoothed out in the ensuing movies, thankfully (although it pops up again, in varying degrees.  Both Thor and Age Of Ultron come to mind), and as far as its presence here is concerned, I’ll just chalk it up to Marvel Studios fumbling the kickoff return, but still recovering the ball.

Just watch it again, and when you’re done- imagine Iron Man 2 without a major S.H.I.E.L.D. presence.  Some pretty basic script doctoring could close the minor holes created by removing Romanoff and Fury.  And less scenes with them would at least make Vanko’s presence feel more important.

Speaking of Vanko, Mickey Rourke deserves more love for this portrayal.  Yeah, he’s mostly sidelined due to the aforementioned multi-narrative issues, but when we do get him on screen it’s great.  Wait, does he die at the end, or is he just knocked out? Honestly, I can’t remember.  Even though I just watched it yesterday.  Must have been that whole WHACK! SMASH! POW! final action sequence thing again.  I’m still holding out hope that we’ll see the return of some characters from the days of yesterMarvel**, like Vanko, Blonsky/Abomination (Ablonskination?), Samuel Sterns, Ten Rings guy… and maybe Justin Hammer?  He’d be the least likely, I guess, but man, that scene when he first meets Vanko, and he’s trying so hard to be as cool as Stark by having ice cream flown in from San Fran and caking on the self-tanning cream so thick that his fingers are all browned and gross is really hilarious.  Sam Rockwell is a genius.

Anyway, I digress.  Lots to love here, so if you’re in the “Iron Man 2 is bad” camp, give it another go.  Just don’t expect Shakespeare.  That’s Thor’s job…

Anyway, I’ll be back.  Gimme a couple of weeks.

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*And now, in the wake of Spider-Man: Far From Home, I guess I wasn’t the only one who loved this scene. Also, that scientist was Peter Billingsley?!? How the frak did I not know that for 11 years?

**…and does the return of Billingsley in Far From Home bolster this hope of mine?  I mean, that’s a two-scene character brought back in a relatively major way.