Funkhouser Fight Club: "Iron Man" vs. "Guardians of the Galaxy"

It is now May and with it comes a slew of things to look forward to.  The Derby, finalizing UK’s upcoming basketball team, and summer movie season.  Things get off to a strong start this week with the premier of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and the continuation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Funkhouser’s own Josh Corman broke down why he thinks the first Guardians is the best Marvel movie and you can check it out here.  Here at the Funkhouser Fight Club we’re going to see how the first Guardians fares against the one that started it all, the first Iron Man.  This is your standard “veteran” versus “new face” fight with Iron Man representing the well-known, extremely successful, original MCU rollout and Guardians representing the lesser known, also extremely successful, second phase story.  As always, two movies enter, one movie leaves. Round 1: Box Office Success Iron Man: $585,174,222 Worldwide ($318,412,101 Domestic) Guardians of the Galaxy: $773, 328, 629 Worldwide ($333,176,600 Domestic) Analysis:  The numbers here seem to indicate a story that isn’t even close.  A further breakdown reveals a much closer story.  Iron Man fared really close in domestic performance despite being theaters for five fewer weeks.  In inflation adjustments for years of release, Iron Man actually performs better than Guardians domestically, but Tony Stark just couldn’t keep up on the international draw. Round 1 Winner: Guardians Round 2: Critical Reception Iron Man: Rotten Tomatoes: 94%, IMDb: 7.9, Metacritic: 79 Guardians: Rotten Tomatoes: 91%, IMDb: 8.1, Metacritic: 76 Analysis: These numbers pretty much speak for themselves.  Both movies are universally loved, but ultimately Iron Man ekes out the win here. Round 2 Winner: Iron Man Round 3: Awards Scoring system for awards: 5 points for Academy Award nominations, 4 points for Screen Actors Guild nominations, 3 points for British Academy of Film and Television Arts nominations, 2 points for Grammy nominations Iron Man: Academy Award nominations: 2, SAG nominations: 1, BAFTA nominations: 1, Grammy nominations: 1, Total points: 19 Guardians: Academy Award nominations: 2, SAG nominations: 0, BAFTA nominations: 2, Grammy nominations: 1. Total points: 18 Analysis: Both of these movies received a ton of nominations from many different outlets.  To reduce this down to a workable list I used this LA Times ranking of film award groups to determine which awards to consider and how to score them.  The Grammys weren’t on this list, but they’re a major award and should be considered. Round 3 Winner: Iron Man Round 4: Quoteability Iron Man: Not really a ton to work with, maybe the best quote is “I am Iron Man”? Guardians: “I am Groot.”, the “metaphor” exchange with Drax, “pelvic sorcery”-Gamora, and just about anything Rocket Raccoon says. Analysis: I get that of all the rounds so far this one is the most subjective, but this is a runaway for Guardians.  Tony Stark has some great dialogue, but in terms of lines you can just casually drop in everyday conversation there isn’t much.  “I am Groot” became a thing and would win this category on its own, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a shout-out to some of the other gems in the movie. Round 4 Winner: Guardians Round 5: Who would win in an actual fight? This wouldn’t be an appropriate fight club without a fight would it?  The Guardians are a team of five, all with a specialty which makes them a crazy good team.  Iron Man has an awesome suit which is tailor made to fight multiple tougher than normal opponents.  I posed this scenario to a panel of experts (my friends who are fans of both movies) for an outside opinion.  The result was a runaway: Guardians got five votes and Iron Man got 0.  Maybe if it was Iron Man 3 and he had his whole suit army, but the Iron Man technology just wasn’t developed enough by the end of the first movie to withstand the Guardians’ barrage. Round 5 Winner and Winner of this Funkhouser Fight club: Guardians