Well folks, the wait has come and gone. Iron Man 2 opened here in the US over the weekend and many of us bots here at BSR! flocked to our local theaters of choice to check it out. Below is what some us thought about the film, a mini-review if you will, and be sure to let us know what you thought about the film in the comments section at the end!
Arse-Bot: Was Iron Man 2 a perfect superhero movie? No. However, was it a fantastic follow up to Iron Man 1? Absolutely. I had rather high expectations for this film going in, because like most, I loved the first one. I as worried that the movie wouldn’t live up to my expectations because like so many of you out there, I have been burned by Marvel sequels before (*cough* X3 *cough*). I am happy to say that Iron Man 2 held up to my lofty expectations and Favreau has delivered a solid follow-up.
First off, Tony Stark. I loved that he has somewhat reverted back to being an arrogant ass. He has brought about an incredible level of world peace due simply to the fact that Iron Man exists, he’s a genius, and he’s rich. And while we all know that deep down in there is a big heart, the narcisism always manages to take front an center for Stark. Some critics out there complained at this fact that it seems as though all the “lessons learned” by Stark in the first one had been washed away – not true – it’s just Tony Stark being Tony Stark, constantly wavering between arrogant narcissism and compassion for others. This whole argument is made null by this fact: While Stark is being arrogant and bragging about being Iron Man, the suit is accelerating the palladium poisoning he is succumbing to from his chest reactor – yet he still dons the suit to protect and help people. Stark is a complicated character, you need to look beyond the narcissism that is always there.
Secondly, the plot. Swank-mo-tron and I have talked about this a little and I’m sure he will have a solid argument for me on the contrary. Swank argues that it feels as though there is nothing at stake in this film. I tend to disagree. I don’t feel that every superhero film needs to be an “end of the world” scenario or have ridiculously large stakes. What makes this a great follow-up film for me is that when we left Stark at the end of Iron Man 1 he declared that he is Iron Man – this film now deals with those consequences, not only the moral and political implications, but how this film’s villains play in. They are both gunning for Stark at multiple angles: his legacy, his company, his friends and of course, his life. I don’t feel that every superhero film needs to have a “Lex Luthor”, someone that wants to kill the hero and in doing so take over the world! This was a simple device that I felt worked well: Stark just admitted to being Iron Man, now people are gunning for him. This provided plenty of tension and excitement for me!
Also, there were some complaints about a lack of action. What this film maybe lacked in action sequences every ten minutes, it made up for in some pretty solid character development. Personally, I didn’t feel there was the lack of action I keep hearing about and the final 20 minutes of the film more than make up for a mid-film lull. Of course, some people just can’t be pleased; if there is too much action, then there isn’t enough character development – if there’s too much character development, then there isn’t enough action. I felt this film balanced both very well.
In my conclusion, I will say this: This film is not perfect – there are some plot holes that could have been avoided, and the film – while still pretty interesting – gets a bit “talky” through the second act, but the final action sequence in the third act really provided that “Hell Yeah! Iron Man can whoop some ass!” action I was waiting for. For me personally, while I feel they were completely avoidable, the plot holes were “over-lookable”. I see how they were intended to move the story along, but if you think about them, they are quite glaring. I’d imagine somewhere on the cutting room floor are a few deleted scenes that probably fill in these holes to a degree. Overall though, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie, I definitely plan to see this again – hopefully in IMAX.
Swank-mo-tron: I really enjoyed Iron Man 2, but I think it fell short of being the best Marvel sequel ever, or even one of the best super-hero movies. It was fun, the acting was all great, the fights and action choreography top notch, but the story and the script had a couple of lulls and holes that really just served no purpose. And I felt like there was no threat or growing shadow of a problem to make me invest into the story further. Don’t get me wrong, I really loved this movie and enjoyed the hell out of it, but I didn’t feel like it had a “fuck yeah” moment like Spider-Man 2 or X2. I know it did for some people, but it wasn’t a universal thing like in the other to sequel movies. But in those movies, the stakes were raised higher than that of the first film, and in Iron Man 2, they were exactly the same. It was a guy bent out of shape about Tony taking a part of his legacy and hard work and building a suit that roughly mimics the Iron Man armour only bigger and then having a blink-and-you’ll miss it fight. Sure, they added some drones and War Machine (which were cool!) but the story stakes NEVER got higher.
And my biggest complaint was the lousy screenwriting surround the car race in Monaco. How did Vanko know Tony was heading to Monaco before Tony did? And when no one, including Tony, knew that he was going to be racing on the track, why was Vanko’s plan to get on there and attack Tony? It made no sense. The other one was when Agent Coulson told Tony if he tried to leave the premises that he’d tazer him and so on. Two scenes later, Tony leaves, comes back, and is instantly met by Coulson. “Heard you left,” he says, as though he never meant to keep him there in the first place. “I had things to do elsewhere,” he says flippantly. Some have told me that it was to “set up the problem with the Hulk, or deal with Thor” but that’s thin. They did plenty of that later so this made no sense and only served to confuse the audience.
Having said that, despite its flaws, I really loved this movie and I’ve seen it twice. I won’t hold it up as high as X2 or Spider-Man 2 or the Incredibles, but it was pretty damnein Iron Man 2, they were exactly the same. It was a guy bent out of shape about Tony taking a part of his legacy and hard work and building a suit that roughly mimics the Iron Man armour only bigger and then having a blink-and-you’ll miss it fight. Sure, they added some drones and War Machine (which were cool!) but the story stakes NEVER got higher.
And my biggest complaint was the lousy screenwriting surround the car race in Monaco. How did Vanko know Tony was heading to Monaco before Tony did? And when no one, including Tony, knew that he was going to be racing on the track, why was Vanko’s plan to get on there and attack Tony? It made no sense. The other one was when Agent Coulson told Tony if he tried to leave the premises that he’d tazer him and so on. Two scenes later, Tony leaves, comes back, and is instantly met by Coulson. “Heard you left,” he says, as though he never meant to keep him there in the first place. “I had things to do elsewhere,” he says flippantly. Some have told me that it was to “set up the problem with the Hulk, or deal with Thor” but that’s thin. They did plenty of that later so this made no sense and only served to confuse the audience.
Having said that, despite its flaws, I really loved this movie and I’ve seen it twice. I won’t hold it up as high as X2 or Spider-Man 2 or the Incredibles, but it was pretty damned fun.
Budgetron: The trailers and other marketing materials failed to grab me with the story elements that would make me thing, “Wow! How in the world is Iron Man gonna weasel his way out of this pickle jar? I gotta see this now!”, and as such, it won’t be difficult for me to wait and see it when it hits my preferred discount theater pub, Brewvies.
Clang! Boom! Steam!: It’s easy to say that Iron Man II was either, not as good as or way better than one super hero movie or another, but the only comparison that I feel is fair to bring to the table is that to the original Iron Man, which was almost universally hailed and with good reason. Critics and audiences were amazed at how much they grew to love a B list character that they knew so little about going into the movie, even as a seasoned Marvel Comics addict, I feel that Robert Downey Junior’s performance made Tony Stark more charismatic, complex and accessible than he had ever been in any Iron Man comic I’d read thus far. (Though I admit I’d only read him in Avenger’s titles) But as with any sleeper hit turned box office juggernaut, the bar was set sky high for the sequel, and rightfully so – the trail has been blazed, now tear it the fuck up right? Well maybe that’s what irked me just a little bit about Iron Man II, they blazed one Hell of a trail with Iron Man (I) only to end up taking a brisk stroll down it.
I don’t mean to imply that the action wasn’t intense or the characters have necessarily lost any of their charm, I just feel that the formula of the movie didn’t end up working quite as well as it could/should have. I will attempt to articulate without sounding like a joyless, overly academic douche.
By my count, most people who have seen the Iron Man II so far, myself included can more or less agree on 2 things –
1) They really enjoyed the movie
2) It wasn’t as good as the original, and I believe it is largely for the reasons stated below.
Many conflicts that existed in the original film spilled over into the sequel (okay) but where I feel it went wrong was the villains, subplots and conflicts seemed to multiply (fine) and diffuse (not okay) – creating a sort of “more is less” effect. It’s not that you didn’t sense any menace, conflict or danger, it’s just that none of it stabbed at your heart as with the Iron Man (1) , nor did it feel like a million pins needles slowly draining your blood as with Spider-Man II – it was more like Tony Stark taking a beating in a sparring match, cuts, bruises and humiliation for sure but not near the intensity or depth that we saw in the original. Because of this, the emotional peaks and valleys were less jagged, the light at the end of the tunnel was a bit fuzzy and the personal investment in the outcome was less complete.
In closing I give HUGE props for mass robot violence and sexy Russian spies – two things that I feel almost all movies could benefit from.
All the same, really enjoyed it, well worth the price of admission and don’t you DARE leave the theater until the end of the credits.
Zombietron:
I went into Iron Man II expecting mediocrity. I was pleasantly surprised with a great action movie with a pretty solid story. I agree with Clang’s statement that Iron Man 1 turned a B super hero into something everyone cared about, and Robert Downy Jr. once again knocked the roll out of the park. There were definitely plot holes, (if Agent Romanov could hand War Machine’s control back, why couldn’t she just turn off the other Hammer bots?). Those aside I was having so much fun watching the movie that I found them easy to ignore. I pray to god, whichever god will listen, maybe the god of superhero movies, or super-hero fans, or super-hero jesus, I don’t care which god. THAT THEY NEVER EVER EVER, have another Scarlet Johansson role in a movie, she was good to look at, and I don’t think any female actor ever could have been a worse black widow.
Go See Iron Man II, and like all the bots are saying STAY AFTER THE CREDITS!
