The Invincible Iron Man (2007)

Film Title: The Invincible Iron Man

Released: January 23, 2007

Directed by: Patrick Archibald & Jay Oliva supervised by Frank Paur

Written by: Greg Johnson & Craig Kyle based on a story by Avi Arad based on characters created by Stan Lee & Larry Lieber

Starring: Marc Worden, Gwendoline Yeo & Fred Tatasciore

Plot: When industrialist Tony Stark is critically wounded by insurgents as he is raising an ancient Chinese city, he creates a suit of armor to escape. He then uses this armor, becoming the superhero Iron Man, to fight an ancient evil that has escaped from the Chinese ruins. 

IMDb: 6.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes: No score
My Score: 2.5/5

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Appearing almost a year and a half prior to its live action counterpart, The Invincible Iron Man offers a similar but variant origin story of the titular character than either the later film or the original comic books. In all three versions, the basics are the same: billionaire genius Tony Stark is injured by villains who kidnap him; severely injured, someone saves his life with a device that is the only thing keeping him alive; once stabilized, the villains force him to build weapons for them but instead of weapons for the bad guys, Stark builds a prototype armor with the help of the person who saved his life and escapes his captors. In the comics (Tales of Suspense #39, March 1963) Stark is kidnapped by a group led by Wong-Chu and saved by Ho Yinsen who dies in the escape attempt. As Stark is making his way back to the American forces, he comes across a wounded Marine fighter pilot, James "Rhodey" Rhodes. In the live action film, Stark is kidnapped by the terrorist organization the Ten Rings, led by Raza, and saved by Yinsen, who dies in the escape attempt. Stark is then found by Rhodey, with whom he was already friends with. In this animated feature, Stark and Rhodey are both kidnapped by the insurgent group the Jade Dragons, led by Wong Chu. Rhodey saves Stark's life and they both escape their captors alive. The Jade Dragons are a group of guerrilla warriors trying to sabotage Stark's attempts to raise an ancient Chinese city because they believe that in doing so, the spirit of the Mandarin, an ancient dictator and mass murderer, will be released to wreak havoc upon the world once more. I have to say that I wasn't overly impressed with The Invincible Iron Man. The marriage of computer and traditional hand drawn animation isn't all that seamless and it takes the movie quite a while to really get rolling. In spite of that, there were a few moments where I was surprised by the hard edge the film took, like when Wong Chu shoots a fellow prisoner in the head to persuade Stark to build his weapons for him. A few small plot twists are refreshing but not really enough to overcome the fairly two-dimensional characterizations of most of the cast. Certainly not the worst animated film I've ever seen, but if you want to be satisfied by an Iron Man feature, I'd suggest the live action Jon Favreau version over this one. The movie features the talents of several accomplished voice actors including Marc Worden as Tony Stark, Gwendolyn Yeo as Li Mei, Fred Tatasciore as the Mandarin, Rodney Saulsberry as Rhodey Rhodes, Elisa Gabrielli as Pepper Potts and James Sie as Wong Chu.