Film 4 - Iron Man

Tony Stark; billionaire, playboy and genius. After giving a weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, Tony is kidnapped and forced to make his latest weapon for his kidnapper. However after he has escaped, Tony decides to quit making weapons and start on something completely afresh: the Iron Man suit.

Superhero conventions present in this film:

• Special item - Tony Stark is an intelligent man and gets straight down with his newest project, redesigning and creating the iron man suit.
• A moral code - at the start of the film, we see that Tony Stark is irresponsible (missing one his award ceremonies to play poker and also tinkering around with his cars meaning that he is three hours late for his plane journey). But towards the end of the film, we see Tony realise what he has done and how he wants to change the world for a better place (even if some of his peers don't agree with him).
• A secret identity - at first Tony keeps the project to himself, but as difficult circumstances arise, his closest friends including Pepper find out. After a showdown with Obadiah, Tony reveals his secret during a press conference, unusual to what a normal superhero would do.
• Finical support - Tony Stark is the son of a billionaire, and originally used to sell weapons for millions of pounds. This of course gives him enough money to fund making his new 'super' suit .
• Archilles Heel - Tony is unhinged at two points of the film, firstly when he is kidnapped in Afghanistan and secondly, when Obadiah steals his electromagnet out of his chest. 
• Rogues gallery - In the first half of the film, Tony has to fight his way out of the cave against a load of Afghan soldiers, who all work for Obadiah.
• Costume features - Tony has made a red and gold trademark suit out of titanium alloy. It is light enough enabling for him to fly. Also he can shoot laser bolts out of the palms of his hands, as well as sending flares from his shoulder blades.

It was the first film installment of the Marvel Universe and it was aimed at mainly the male between the ages of 12-40 (this would include a diverse range from young teenagers to middle aged comic book nerds). 

The binary opposition is shown is the whole Arab/American military war as we see a lot of the on the news where the Americans are the 'heroes' trying to fight in a war against the 'evil' Arabs which is reinforced in this film as you see Tony Stark being taken hostage by the 'brutal' Arabs. The military are then flown in to try and rescue Tony however it takes a interesting plot twist when Tony defeats them all by himself.

Again, Iron Man is yet another superhero where it reinforces the gender stereotypes as Tony Stark is the typical male lead. and although he is seen flirting with a lot of women (hence the playboy status), we see Virginia "Pepper" Potts being introduced as Tony's love interest. Near the end of the film, Tony makes sure Pepper is protected by six agents, whilst he fights Obadiah by himself. 

Iron Man seeks to entertain it's audience by using special effects to bring the Iron Man suit to life. It also uses the special effects to create the fast paced battle between Iron Man and Obadiah at the end of the film as well as the weapons that Stark Industries has created. In Iron Man, they also go to the desert to shoot some of the scenes such as the revealing of the Jericho missile and the kidnap. Finally the banter between Tony Stark and some of the other characters, such as Rhodes and Pepper, increase the humour in the film, making it more entertaining to the audience.