Iron Man 2

Ax · 05-11-2010, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DKelly

Yep, that was Sam Rockwell, and if nothing else, you need to see him in The Assassination of Jesse James.

However, if you had said Mickey Rourke needed to be run out of Hollywood, I'd have had to tear you a new one.

He needs to be stopped from messing with scripts and characters. He's the one who suggested Whiplash talk mostly in Russian and have the gold teeth and bird.

**tmlfan123** · 05-12-2010, 12:24 PM

I enjoyed this movie a lot. Not quite an A-lister, but a solid action movie I'd watch again.

I was also OK with Scarlet Johansson as eye candy

Jeffrey · 05-31-2010, 12:52 AM

SPOILERS

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ax

He needs to be stopped from messing with scripts and characters. He's the one who suggested Whiplash talk mostly in Russian and have the gold teeth and bird.

I liked all of those additions. Ivan was a realistic character (at least, for a sci-fi action film).

Overall, Iron Man 2 was bloated, unengaging, and tapered off to a predictable ending.

Was it worth my money? I guess. The movie was big on action. But you know...no, I wish I had just rented it. None of the action sequences were original or really required me to see it on a big screen.

In fact, the Monaco scene was the most ludicrous and insulting action scene I've seen in a semi-realistic film.

A good director/team would have focused on "Whiplash," making the point of the film a contrast between Ivan (who is using his genius only to dwell on revenge and the sins of the past) and Tony (who is using his genius to dwell on legacy and to move beyond the sins of the past). Instead, we got five plotlines mashed together.

Also, we got some half-assed quasi-libertarian thing. The US government was and wasn't the villain. It was weird. The film wanted to make the US government look threatening, but made time to goggle all over our [paid, non-drafted, career, brothel-patronizing, third world terrorizing] men in uniform. Both this and the first film seems to want to suggest that war is bad, but can't help but kiss the ass of the US military-industrial complex. God forbid the film point out that no king wages war without willing soldiers.

At most we got Seantor Stern, who didn't seem to have much pull. Also: give how powerful the Iron Man suit was and how self-destructive Tony was, it was certainly reasonable (tabling my panarchic views) for the US military to want a demonstrably effective weapon of mass destruction out of the hands of a playboy. Yes, true believers - I found myself rooting for the military-industrial complex. And since Tony is just going to become S.H.I.E.L.D.'s whipping boy, what we were supposed to take away? That such power doesn't belong to the government? Or it does, as long as the folks representing the government have some sort of James Bond independence from the government?

To raise another point - saying that nations unfriendly to the US will need five to twenty years to make an Iron Man analogue is ridiculous if it's meant to prove that the Pentagon doesn't need access to the Iron Man tech. THE US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE THINKS IN TERMS OF FIVE, TEN, FIFTY YEARS OUT! TONY BASICALLY PROVED THEIR POINT!

Superheroes are fascist. That's the damning contradiction at the heart of the genre. And this film just added to it.

Beyond this, the film wanted us to care for the characters, but they were just props for the action scenes. We learned nothing new about Pepper, her job was just to run around sputtering at Tony's thoughtlessness. Hell, we learned nothing about Tony - he didn't have to overcome anything except a bunch of robots. He didn't manage to apologize to really anyone, he nearly killed bystanders in a fight with his best friend, he endangered people by showing up at the expo in the battle scene, he had the discovery of the new element handed to him, a magic band of superspies came to his aid. The film never developed its likely message of "No man is an island."

Also, the film went on and on about Tony pacifying the world but we never SAW ANY OF IT. Was it just that all these warring nations took a breather because he beat up a big robot and blew up some terrorists in the first film? Or did he break international law and intervene in conflicts between the two films? Which is it? Was it just the stuff in the first film that gave the world a long period of peace that Tony boasted about, or was it the latter, which raises the question of why the film didn't show a montage of that stuff OR deal with the illegality of meddling in international affairs?

Also, one videotape cannot reasonably make up for the emotional scars his father left. That whole "video from the past" nonsense felt like the screenwriter had an episode of The Venture Bros. on in the background while he wrote.

P.S. There were tooooo many characters being featured.

P.P.S. I give this film one-and-a-half stars, only for the generally solid acting.

Jeffrey · 05-31-2010, 12:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey

This movie is going to rock my socks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey

I would be shocked if they didn't make an awesome movie. Shocked and appalled. Everything I see related to this flick looks amazing.

Alas, my prediction was wrong. Count my appalled. Or rather, annoyed.

Also, spoilers:

Thor's hammer looked plastic.

Darkhyperchaos · 06-04-2010, 07:47 PM

I actually liked it more than the first one, though to be honest, I really didn't like the first one that much. Certainly not a perfect movie, but it was quite enjoyable.

Napoleon17 · 06-05-2010, 10:01 PM

POSSIBLE SPOILERS BUT IT'S HARD TO SPOIL A MOVIE THIS BAD

I agree with what you said about the movie, Jeffrey. I'm glad you said it because I cared so little about this movie after seeing it there is no way I would take the time to type all that out. I liked your observations of the holes in the plot, etc, but to me the real problem of the whole movie and really of both of the movies so far has been that it's just not that interesting.

I mean, take the conflict between the Senator dude and the playboy dude. The Senator dude says he wants the suit, and the other dude says "no way Jose, it's mine". Sooooo interesting. Also the conflict between Tony stark and his competitor was not that compelling either. One of the guys is the good guy and is smart and the other guy is a bad guy. Wow. Groundbreaking. And the big "climax" (if you can call it that) at the end where the two dudes have to fight all the other robot thingys lasted for like a minute and they pretty much easily beat all their enemies. And then the movie was over.

**Sean** · 06-06-2010, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Napoleon17

POSSIBLE SPOILERS BUT IT'S HARD TO SPOIL A MOVIE THIS BAD
And the big "climax" (if you can call it that) at the end where the two dudes have to fight all the other robot thingys lasted for like a minute and they pretty much easily beat all their enemies. And then the movie was over.

To be fair, the final sequence was a lot longer than a minute. There was a chase, people breaking into a building and fighting, showdown with lots of little robots and a show down with the final bad guy.

conceived in fire · 06-06-2010, 02:17 PM

Yeah, that sequence was probably closer to five minutes. They didn't "easily beat all their enemies" either - Stark and Rhodes were practically getting their butts kicked by Whiplash until they realized how to end it.

Darkhyperchaos · 06-07-2010, 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by conceived in fire

Yeah, that sequence was probably closer to five minutes. They didn't "easily beat all their enemies" either - Stark and Rhodes were practically getting their butts kicked by Whiplash until they realized how to end it.

The ending "fight" was extremely weak and too short, but the movie as a whole really isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

**scared2mosh** · 06-07-2010, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkhyperchaos

The ending "fight" was extremely weak and too short, but the movie as a whole really isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

Indeed

conceived in fire · 06-07-2010, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkhyperchaos

The ending "fight" was extremely weak and too short, but the movie as a whole really isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

74% on Rotten Tomatoes (87% w/ the users) and 7.5/10 say you're in the minority if you don't like it, let alone actually hate it.

**scared2mosh** · 06-07-2010, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by conceived in fire

74% on Rotten Tomatoes (87% w/ the users) and 7.5/10 say you're in the minority if you don't like it, let alone actually hate it.

We just have a lot of really tough critics/comic book fans on the site haha

conceived in fire · 06-07-2010, 01:56 PM

Yeah.
YOU CHANGED THE CHARACTERS GAHHH YOU CAN'T DO THAT EVERYTHING MUST BE 100% THE SAME!! EPIC FAIL!!

**SporkV** · 06-07-2010, 02:37 PM

I rather enjoyed it myself.
Not as good as the first one, but still enjoyable.

Jeffrey · 06-13-2010, 02:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by conceived in fire

74% on Rotten Tomatoes (87% w/ the users) and 7.5/10 say you're in the minority if you don't like it, let alone actually hate it.

If you look at "top critics," the film only earned a 66% whereas that same group gave the first film 92%.

Way to manipulate the numbers. Like the American public is any credible commentator's standard for whether a piece of art is any good.

There's a lot of just awful media that's very popular. I for one spend a lot of time defending Justin Bieber from the moronic hatedom that's arisen, yet his stuff sells really well despite being pretty lame.

I'm not against what's popular. I loved the first film.

Quote:

Originally Posted by scared2mosh

We just have a lot of really tough critics/comic book fans on the site haha

Or people with bad taste (present company considered) allow Hollywood to make crappy movies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by conceived in fire

Yeah.
YOU CHANGED THE CHARACTERS GAHHH YOU CAN'T DO THAT EVERYTHING MUST BE 100% THE SAME!! EPIC FAIL!!

Hey goober, I for one didn't complain about these things. Did I ☺☺☺☺☺ that Justin Hammer was changed from old dude to a young guy? No, I didn't mind that change. Did I mind that they mish-mashed three characters into Ivan? No, I really liked this film's Ivan.

I threw down the gauntlet by explaining the flaws of the film and it wasn't a scene-by-scene complaint of how they didn't adapt the best issue of the comic.

Are you afraid of actually addressing my critique? Or are you just going to mock users that don't exist? Your Straw Man is showing, buddy. It's stuffed with the same crap that went into this film's script.