2008 – Iron Man
This was a really good movie. It was one of the first films to really put the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the map, and we all know how big that franchise is. The visual effects are really first rate, and I think they went a very long way to making this film as successful as it was. The photo-realism was beyond amazing, giving audiences something they had never seen before.
Now, all that being said, this was a superhero movie, which has become its own sub-genre of action films, and being an action film, it had its fair share of great explosions. Explosions seem to be standard for action flicks, and these were pretty spectacular. In fact, in a small way, explosions were inherent to the plot, seeing as how Tony Stark was a weapons manufacturer. We get explosions when he is demonstrating his weapons, and when he is destroying them. And more explosions when Stark escapes from the terrorists in his first iron suit.
But that isn’t why people came to see this movie. They came to see the red and gold super-powered armor in action. Well, they knocked this effect out of the park, and though most of it was CGI, there were a few live rubber costume pieces and a few metal ones, but you’d never know it by what is shown on the screen. It all looked amazing! It occurs to me that something this movie did that one of the previous year’s Best Visual Effects nominees, Transformers, didn’t do, was to show the mechanics of the moving metal in an engaging way. They allowed us to kind-of see the inner workings of the robot-like armor, like they were showing off how photo-realistic their CGI animation was, and it was really cool!
And when Iron Man was in action, he was exciting to watch. He moved just like he should have, like the pieces of an armored suit would actually move. When he was in flight, he moved at super-sonic speeds. When he was firing his repulsor beams, there was a realistic kick-back. When he was hit with a missile, he was thrown off balance. When he was pummeled to the ground, his armor had visible scrapes and gouges. I mean we all know that the technology for a real Iron Man suit doesn’t actually exist, but they seemed to really think about what it would be like if it did.
But we can’t forget the amazing villain of the film, Obadiah Stane, when he puts on his own armored suit and becomes Iron Monger. He was huge and hulking, looking like it could easily crush the sleek little Iron Man without any effort. Iron Monger, again paying attention to the details that made the fantasy more realistic, moved differently than Iron Man, functioned differently. The visual effects team really thought about what they were doing and it showed. And when they pay attention to those little things, all of it is just more believable, and makes for a better movie.
And finally, all the futuristic computer-generated holographics we got to see in Tony’s lab, and the digital displays shown over his face when he was wearing the Iron Man helmet were fantastic. And I loved the sequence in the film where Tony is testing his flight capabilities in his lab. Very cool, and funny, to boot!