The Invincible Iron Man- DVD Review

Film, Reviews

Available at Amazon.com

Directed by
Frank Paur

Written by
Greg Johnson

Cast
Marc Worden ………. Tony Stark/Iron Man (voice)
Gwendoline Yeo ………. Li Mei (voice)
Fred Tatasciore ………. The Mandarin (voice)
Rodney Saulsberry ………. Rhodey (voice)
Elisa Gabrielli ………. Pepper Potts (voice)
John McCook ………. Howard Stark (voice)

DVD Release Date: January 23, 2007
Running Time: 83 minutes
Rated: PG-13 (Action Violence and Some Sensuality)

The Movie

Tony Stark is the type of person Bruce Wayne pretends to be, a self-centered billionaire playboy who plays by his own rules. This super-hero is a kiss stealing, wheeling-dealing, limousine riding, jet flying, wooo, sunnavagun. (Bruce Wayne says “woo!” right?) All of this changes when – well, actually all of that never really changes. Things don’t always go Stark’s way, though, especially when he’s fired by his own dad, is accused of being a weapon’s dealer, gets a load of shrapnel in his heart, and has to stop the resurrection of an ancient Chinese sovereign known only as the Mandarin.

These billionaires have it rough, eh?

Luckily for Tony, he has a secret vault full of exo-skeletons, a helpful black sidekick and an over-achieving personal assistant to help in such matters, and by the end of the movie, Tony Stark is able to kill hordes of enemies, stop the Mandarin, clear his good name, reconcile with his father, have an ill-fated romance and a couple of emotionless flings.

Iron Man is pure B-movie goodness, full of cliches, stereotypes, prophecies, crazy technologies, stiff cartoon acting, and over-the-top violence. It’s pulpy, feeling like the Saturday morning cartoon love-child of a bunch of ’40s serials and a handful of Bond flicks.

Iron Man features hundreds of undead bodies, one hot tub scene, one shower scene, one Buddhist monk getting shot in the face, gratuitous lava, frequent use of mustaches, cotton candy fu, and board of directors fu. For a direct-to-DVD cartoon (now $13 on Amazon), you could do a lot worse.

The DVD

The DVD features a fair amount of stuff for a movie without a theatrical release. We get English and Spanish audio tracks, an alternate opening sequence which explains more about “the prophecy”, and concept art.

Also included is “The Origins of Iron Man” , which is a short “making of” featurette.
Most interesting to comic geeks will be The Hall of Iron Man Armor which has pictures and information on a bunch of different Iron Man suits. (It’s far from complete, but then again it is a single disc DVD.)

The disc is rounded out with A Look at Doctor Strange which previews the next Lions Gate Marvel cartoon, and a trailer gallery.

The DVD Lounge’s Ratings for The Invincible Iron Man
CATEGORY
RATING
(OUT OF 10)
THE MOVIE

6
THE VIDEO

7
THE AUDIO

7
THE EXTRAS

7
REPLAY VALUE

6
OVERALL
6.5
(NOT AN AVERAGE)