Iron Man 2

[edcq]

Went to the midnight opening last night and the theater was packed at 10:30, good thing we got our tickets earlier in the day because they were turning people away. I absolutely loved the movie from start to end, just a great piece of cinema. The action was great and Robert Downey Jr. delivered as Tony Stark once again.

[King Ellis]

I enjoyed the movie but never felt overly excited during it and came away with a slight sense of undwhelment.

I'm not sure I care for how things panned out for Pepper either. Stark spends the whole movie eye humping Natalie and is generally a bit of a dick towards Pepper. She becomes empowered and shuns him but in the end it's all ok and .

[Gene Kiniski]

Just saw it. It rocked. Slightly underwhelming in areas, but made up for it in other areas for sure. I think Tony Stark is my hero.

[The Quasi Juice]

I didn't see Iron Man as a masterpiece like others, so I wasn't expecting a masterpiece this time around either. It was well worth my money. Mickey Rourke looked badass as usual and Downey Jr. was often hilarious as Tony Stark. Only thing I thought was moronic was

how the formula one drivers kept on going when Rourke stepped on the track. The drivers are connected to people outside the track, so they should all have slowed down/stopped before even arriving at Rourke's place. It was also stupid that Pepper and Lucky went ON the track with a normal car, driving towards the traffic, it just didn't make sense. They could have just thrown the box to Stark over the fence. It was also very nice of Rourke to let Stark put his suit on

But all in all, enjoyable movie.

Edited May 8, 2010 by The Quasi Juice

[hugobomb]

I didn't see Iron Man as a masterpiece like others, so I wasn't expecting a masterpiece this time around either. It was well worth my money. Mickey Rourke looked badass as usual and Downey Jr. was often hilarious as Tony Stark. Only thing I thought was moronic was

how the formula one drivers kept on going when Rourke stepped on the track. The drivers are connected to people outside the track, so they should all have slowed down/stopped before even arriving at Rourke's place. It was also stupid that Pepper and Lucky went ON the track with a normal car, driving towards the traffic, it just didn't make sense. They could have just thrown the box to Stark over the fence. It was also very nice of Rourke to let Stark put his suit on

But all in all, enjoyable movie.

Same here, surely that's when Stark's at his most vunerable, waiting for his suit to fit itself to him, GO FOR THE HEAD NOW!!!

One of the things I did love about the film was the great hammy performance by the guy playing Hammer (who IIRC was the bad guy in the first Charlie's Angels), you could tell he was enjoying every second of the film as he chewed up the scenery.

Edited May 8, 2010 by Hugobombski

[The Quasi Juice]

I didn't see Iron Man as a masterpiece like others, so I wasn't expecting a masterpiece this time around either. It was well worth my money. Mickey Rourke looked badass as usual and Downey Jr. was often hilarious as Tony Stark. Only thing I thought was moronic was

how the formula one drivers kept on going when Rourke stepped on the track. The drivers are connected to people outside the track, so they should all have slowed down/stopped before even arriving at Rourke's place. It was also stupid that Pepper and Lucky went ON the track with a normal car, driving towards the traffic, it just didn't make sense. They could have just thrown the box to Stark over the fence. It was also very nice of Rourke to let Stark put his suit on

But all in all, enjoyable movie.

Same here, surely that's when Stark's at his most vunerable, waiting for his suit to fit itself to him, GO FOR THE HEAD NOW!!!

One of the things I did love about the film was the great hammy performance by the guy playing Hammer (who IIRC was the bad guy in the first Charlie's Angels), you could tell he was enjoying every second of the film as he chewed up the scenery.

Sam Rockwell? Great actor

[K]

I liked it, but I feel it never really came to a proper climax. The final battle was a little underwealming.

[zero]

Not as good as Iron Man, but still a very fun movie. My only gripes were:

The underwhelming final battle, not nearly enough Black Widow, and I thought the whole Iron Man vs. War Machine battle in Stark's house was lame.

But other than that, highly enjoyable, but didn't continue the trend of awesome sequels to awesome comic book movies (Spider-Man 2 > Spider-Man, X2 > X-Men, Dark Knight > Batman Begins, etc.)

Oh and after the credits spoiler

THOR!!!

[LittleDaniel]

Saw it last night. Meh. I enjoy me some alcoholic Tony Stark, which wasn't played up much beyond one scene.

[hackerjack]

Meh it was alright.

It could have been very good if they had played up the descent into alcoholism, the poisening, the thing with his father. Trouble is it all took a backseat to poor comedy and sub-par action. There was just no reason whatsoever to sympathise with Stark's charachter through any of it so it's all an oppertunity missed.

[AnnIQ Edison]

The poisoning was really kinda irrelevanto anything except as a small key to find a new heart thingo. It could have easily been done another way. The fact that for half the movie he's dying then SHIELD just give him a shot to fix it for a while totally negates the whole previous story development.

I think it almost suffered a similar situation to Spiderman 3 in that there was just too much going on for the movie to come across as great as it should have.

It was still a great ball of fun though.

[hackerjack]

The poisoning/redemption thing should have really spanned two movies, have this movie end with him still thinking he was going to die and tehn find the cure next time (see ebb and flow of trilogies like Star Wars or LOTR). But they obviously don't expect movie-goers to have a memory that long.

[TKz]

The poisoning/redemption thing should have really spanned two movies, have this movie end with him still thinking he was going to die and tehn find the cure next time (see ebb and flow of trilogies like Star Wars or LOTR). But they obviously don't expect movie-goers to have a memory that long.

I think that'd be a bit too dark for Iron Man. Sure, the Demon in a Bottle storyline was great in the comics and they could have been on to something with the poisoning storyline, but Iron Man isn't The Dark Knight. The franchise is a lot more happy and a lot closer to being geared as a family film, which is part of the reason I think it's so great. They're not going to end this film on a negative note (and definitely not on a cliffhanger to be solved in Iron Man 3) because the next film in the series to feature Tony Stark will be The Avengers. And there just wouldn't be time in a film with that many stars to include side stories from every Marvel film.

I also really don't see the problem with how they solved the poisoning thing. Shield gave him a shot that would slow down the poison whilst also giving him some of Howard Stark's work that might prove useful. In the end, Howard, who was never much of a father to Tony, ends up helping to save his son thanks to the new element he had been trying to work on when he was alive.

And I don't really get the criticism that there was 'too much' going on. I mean, there was a lot of stuff, yeah, but it all tied in rather nicely I found to one of two different storylines, the main and sub plot of the film. Whiplash, Rockwell & War Machine all tied into the main storyline, whilst Fury and Black Widow were all about the sub plot. Though, thinking about it they could have done with combining the two at some point. (Maybe instead of Happy Hogan and Natasha going to go find Vanko, it's Fury and Widow. Or maybe Fury actually has some interest in the Iron Man Drones.) Still though, I never felt there was too much going on, just that occasionally some parts of the story didn't seem to flow so well into the others.

EDIT: My opinion on the film may be slightly blinded by the fact that Iron Man is one of my favourite heroes, the first film was one of my favourite films and the fact that I fucking loved every single performance in the second one. Sam Rockwell proved that he should have some kind of starring role or his own vehicle after this. Though, I still stand behind my points.

[Bryan Blade]

Agreed Sam Rockwell was cool

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

I thought it was an okay summer action flick, but nothing spectacular and certainly one of Marvel's worst offerings of the last few years. (The friends I went with both hated it, one saying it was almost as bad as Clash of the Titans and the other one wondering why we saw Clash of the Titans.)

Like TKz, Iron Man's probably my favourite superhero, but this is the trumped-up, 21st-century Iron Man we've seen in recent comics, not simply the classic character with a more modern twist.

The alcoholism thing was ridiculous. In the comics, Tony's a great tragic hero because he was portrayed as a clear alcoholic, and he managed to overcome it, and the 'recovered alcoholic' characterization stuck. In the movie, he had a few too many at a party. If that was intended to be a nod at that aspect of his character from his comics, it was ridiculous. If it was intended to be a way to get Tony to fight Rhodey and lose, it was a good one--but I suspect they were trying to play to the classic characterization.

Like others have said, Sam Rockwell was good, although he came off as a bit too much of a "loser who got lucky once" type for my liking. My favourite Iron Man stories have always been about business rivals who might not be geniuses to rival Tony Stark, but have plenty of brains behind their money--Hammer here wasn't that at all.

I liked the performance of the guy from Mad Men as Howard Stark a lot, but I thought the whole "riddle" behind the life-saving element was ridiculously contrived.

Scarlet Johanson was awesome.

I guess I should have known not to expect much from a movie where Whiplash was the main villain, but when you think about it, Iron Man has never really had a great rogues' gallery beyond the Mandarin and Stane/Hammer. His greatest battles have been with himself or with technology, but a family-friendly superhero movie can't really delve into either of those.

[TKz]

I'll be the first to agree that Whiplash (though I did like him) was in no way anywhere near as fantastic as Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stane.

I think the way I would sum up this movie in terms of quality, is that if Iron Man 1 was Awesome, this was just Good. It never reached the levels of awesome the first did, but I certainly wouldn't say it was a bad film.

[Jimmy]

I dunno, I enjoyed this one more than the original Iron Man. The first one was really good, don't get me wrong. But I really enjoyed the supporting crew here. I loved seeing Sam Rockwell mix it up in the business world; and they Stark mixing it up with Rourke on the battlefield.

I agree that Whiplash was a little more underwhelming than the Jeff Bridges' character. But if Iron Man and War Machine hadn't tore through those robots at the end. Or if Iron Man had truly fallen into the depths of alcholism or was devoid of motiviation the city was going to be in a lot of shit.

I just think this film felt more enjoyable than the first movie. It felt bigger, it felt busier but it still maintained interesting stories and good characterisation.

[hackerjack]

The poisoning/redemption thing should have really spanned two movies, have this movie end with him still thinking he was going to die and tehn find the cure next time (see ebb and flow of trilogies like Star Wars or LOTR). But they obviously don't expect movie-goers to have a memory that long.

I think that'd be a bit too dark for Iron Man. Sure, the Demon in a Bottle storyline was great in the comics and they could have been on to something with the poisoning storyline, but Iron Man isn't The Dark Knight. The franchise is a lot more happy and a lot closer to being geared as a family film, which is part of the reason I think it's so great. They're not going to end this film on a negative note (and definitely not on a cliffhanger to be solved in Iron Man 3) because the next film in the series to feature Tony Stark will be The Avengers. And there just wouldn't be time in a film with that many stars to include side stories from every Marvel film.

I also really don't see the problem with how they solved the poisoning thing. Shield gave him a shot that would slow down the poison whilst also giving him some of Howard Stark's work that might prove useful. In the end, Howard, who was never much of a father to Tony, ends up helping to save his son thanks to the new element he had been trying to work on when he was alive.

And I don't really get the criticism that there was 'too much' going on. I mean, there was a lot of stuff, yeah, but it all tied in rather nicely I found to one of two different storylines, the main and sub plot of the film. Whiplash, Rockwell & War Machine all tied into the main storyline, whilst Fury and Black Widow were all about the sub plot. Though, thinking about it they could have done with combining the two at some point. (Maybe instead of Happy Hogan and Natasha going to go find Vanko, it's Fury and Widow. Or maybe Fury actually has some interest in the Iron Man Drones.) Still though, I never felt there was too much going on, just that occasionally some parts of the story didn't seem to flow so well into the others.

EDIT: My opinion on the film may be slightly blinded by the fact that Iron Man is one of my favourite heroes, the first film was one of my favourite films and the fact that I fucking loved every single performance in the second one. Sam Rockwell proved that he should have some kind of starring role or his own vehicle after this. Though, I still stand behind my points.

I agree with a lot of that, it wasn't a bad film and everythign made sense, it's just that I feel it is an oppertunity lost to give Stark a little sympathy as a charachter.

I don't know the comics too well to be honest so I've no idea where this is heading (and I kind of like that) so I might be barking up the wrong tree, I just got the impression that even after going through a situation where he was dieing, alcoholic, found otu that his father did actually care about him and accepted that he diodn't have to do it all alone his charachter seemed remarkably unchanged from the arrogant little prick it was before all that. If a sub-plot like that isn't going to change anything then why have it? Surely he could have just devised the new power source as a responce to Whiplash nearly kicking the snot out of him, which would have fit the more typical "i've got to be best" idea anyway.

[maninblack]

RE: the Mandarin...I think the director said he wanted to put him in the first Iron Man movie, but opted to save him for a sequel. I think Mandarin's planned for Iron Man 3 or Avengers.

Finally got the chance to watch it with some friends last night. I liked it. I didn't get the vibe that Stark came across as an unsympathetic character.

The part about Howard Stark (a very good casting choice for this role, with the nods to the Mad Men character) providing Tony with the solution for his palladium problem does seem contrived, but I'm willing to live with it.

[TGC]

In a recent interview Fav said he would like to use The Mandarin for the third movie, but he still needs to figure out the magic aspect.

As for IM2, I really enjoyed it. Saw it last Friday and thought that it worked incredibly well. It's not perfect by any means, and the whole poisoning subplot resolution did not quite work for me, but overall I did like it. I do not think it was as good as the first though.