Iron Man 2

5 Responses to “Iron Man 2”

1. Dr. Ali Akbar bin Waleed says:

   August 31, 2010 at 10:08 pm

   I utterly despise Iron Man 2 because I think it is one of the worst comic adaptations to film of the last hundred years…easily!! It’s like some ultra-crappy, foreign film director like Uwe Boll took the heart and soul of the Iron Man 2 character and universe…and the p i s s e d all over it to make this ersatz translation into film! But in this case, the guilty party is Jon “Suck” Favreau, and not some foreigner like Uwe Boll! Instead of watching an absolutely crappy translation into film that Iron Man 2 epitomizes, watch an unmatched and awesome film adaptation, something like the Milla Jovovich-helmed series of Resident Evil films! Now there’s an inarguable example of what a perfect film adaptation is! But for an even more supreme example of a film adaptation that easily outclasses Iron Man 2, try Uwe Boll’s 2003 jewel called House of the Dead, or his even better, more recent offering, 2008′s In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, also by the director who is the master of Jon Favreau, Uwe Boll.

   As for that rehabilitated d r u g a d d i c t, Robert Downey Jr.–I can think of a zillion actors who could make better Tony Starks and Iron Men than this weakling and clown! I’m angry at how Downey wrongly plays Tony Stark like some p l a y b o y, ultra-billionaire who has all the gadgets in the world at his disposal with which to fight evildoers! Everyone knows that that is a p e r v e r t e d take on the comic book version of Tony Stark! And everyone just as much knows that a faithful representation of Tony Stark from the comic books should be played more like how Arnold Schwarzenegger played Mr. Freeze in that fan-approved and highly serious, 1997 movie Batman and Robin, which was more a clownish and campy, happy-go-lucky approach.

   In conclusion, I’d just like to publicly rebuke the director, John… Suckreau, Downey Jr., and the whole movie studio for misappropriating money and wasting it on this wreck of a failed comic book adaptation of Iron Man, especially in this time of the Obama Recession when jobs are scarce, and that money could’ve instead gone to extending jobless benefits for all Americans for another 59 months!
   
   Rating: 2 / 5
2. LP Quagmire says:

   August 31, 2010 at 10:21 pm

   This review actually pertains to the movie HAMLET 2, which I’ve reviewed a number of times and for whatever reason the good people at Amazon.com continually refuse to publish. And yes, HAMLET 2 is that rare sequel that actually improves upon the original.
   Rating: 5 / 5
3. J. H. Henderson says:

   September 1, 2010 at 12:52 am

   I caught this film early and since the first movie did so well, I had some reasonable expectations going into this one. While I don’t think the movie quite met what I was expecting, it wasn’t all that bad.

   The Good: The effects, obviously were pretty good. Pretty much what you would be expecting from a mainstream superhero movie. Nothing really spectacular or memorable in terms of special effects that blew me away, but the effects did their job of immersing you in the story, and that’s all they really should be doing.

   The casting was also… decent. Don Chiedle was a good addition I thought and Samuel L Jackson wasn’t as unbearable as I imagined he would be when I saw him as Nick Fury at the end of the first movie. ((I have something against Sam Jackson, if he doesn’t bother you, he probably won’t in this film either.)) Also, whoever the guy is that plays they head of Stark’s rival technology company provides some pretty decent laughs throughout.

   The Bad: The casting. Let’s start off with what I felt was the biggest problem. Robert Downey Jr., or maybe it was just the character of Tony Stark, came off as entirely unlikeable. I found myself liking Mickey Rourke’s character more. There just seemed to be no reason to empathize with Stark. He’s uber rich, probably the most powerful man in America, and his only real problem is some medical condition that he ends up curing later on in the film as if it’s nothing. -SPOILER- No… seriously, he literally creates a NEW ELEMENT in about 5 minutes, and this new element cures him. Awesome. Also, there’s a scene where he’s drunk in the Iron Man suit, firing off it’s weapons to show off for a bunch of drunk chicks. Whatever… Kinda funny, but mostly just irritating. -SPOILER END-

   Another bad casting issue was Mickey Rourke. Not that he did a particularly bad job, just that it sorta felt like there was no reason for him to be there. I admit that I don’t know a whole lot about Iron Man villians, and have NEVER heard of Whiplash before, so maybe he actually looks a lot like the character? I dunno, either way the performance felt inconsistant and campy.

   Also, I have no problem with Jon Favreau being in a movie he directed, but this felt a little overboard. I mean, sure he was in the first Iron Man movie too, but in this one, he seems to be around too much and is even in one of the fight scenes.

   There is also an actress who plays an assistant to Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury, though I don’t recall the actress, and her performance was nothing memorable. Your typical “badass chick in leather catsuit” flipping around rediculously in fight scenes and showing no emotion in non-fight scenes. Meh, I’m sure that’s how the character was written so I can’t say if it’s her fault.

   Editing: There seemed to be a lot of unnecessary scenes in the movie that added nothing to the overall narrative. I don’t wanna list them all out for spoiler reasons. This made the movie much longer than I felt it needed to be and much of that extra time was spent either showing how “quirky” of a billionaire Tony Stark is, which I felt we saw enough of in the first movie.

   Action Sequences: This is why you see a superhero movie right? Well evidently not in this one. I won’t say too much about them, but they were, in my opinion, completely forgettable, unusually short (all of them combined probably take up 15 minutes of the movie), and just uninspired.

   To summarize, I had hopes that this would be the movie to see this summer, but as it currently stands, I happen to think Kick-Ass, was an infintely better superhero movie, despite it’s flaws and moral issues.
   Rating: 2 / 5
4. Guy says:

   September 1, 2010 at 2:01 am

   Oh hey, there’ll be spoilers. Also, this has been heavily edited from the two paragraph blurb it once was. Now you know.

   Iron Man. We saw in the first movie an arrogant, hedonistic, self-absorbed playboy brought low. We saw him build himself back up again into something greater. He was still self-absorbed, arrogant and hedonistic, but now he was less like someone they’d make a reality show after and more like James Bond. He’s still going to chase the girl and have a good time doing his job, but he’s still the guy who’s going to save the world.

   On top of that, we had an excellent cast, and they played to their strengths. Jeff Bridges was the most subdued, interesting villain I’ve seen in a long time. Gwyneth Paltrow played the smart, independent, savvy personal assistant who’s not above knocking her boss down a peg when he needs it. Terrence Howard was fantastic as Rhodey. Even John Favreau, the director himself, was amusing as Happy the bodyguard in the scene he had.

   Four writers crafted a character story in the guise of an action movie in the superhero genre that wouldn’t be seen again until The Dark Knight.

   SO WHAT HAPPENED?! Why did the second movie suck?!

   Well, Robert Downey Jr. was so impressed with the movie Tropic Thunder that he brought the co-screen writer for that movie to write Iron Man 2. There are some wonderful one-person talents who can write science fiction adventure well (Nicholas Meyer from Star Trek 2 and 6 immediately comes to mind), but unfortunately this guy isn’t one of them. And John Favreau, the director, seems to know nothing at all when it comes to directing action scenes; the weakest part of the first movie is the anti-climactic action scene near the end. This combination has led to a watered down movie, where too many things happen too quickly, there are entirely too many characters to focus on, the hype of the upcoming Avengers movie washes away the main story, the action is atrocious, and it’s hard to sit through.

   Iron Man 2. We finally have the back story out of the way. We finally can get to the action, crafted expertly into a story around Tony Stark becoming the alcoholic danger to himself and others he’s known best for. We can finally see Rhodey don his own suit and take up the mantel while Tony puts himself back together…again. We can see Pepper Potts doing her thing, and Happy doing his. Mix it up with the occasional reminder of the Avengers Initiative and you have a movie as worthwhile as the first one. Maybe we’ll get a Big Bad as great as Jeff Bridges. And maybe John Favreau will let someone else direct the action after all the criticism he got over the first movie.

   We didn’t get any of that, did we? We didn’t get a great action movie, we got Science Comic Con. A convention? The movie centers around a science convention?! Did we stumble into a sitcom along the way to the theater by accident, because an action movie that costs tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to make shouldn’t have the plot of a Simpsons episode.

   In the Marvel universe, vibranium is kind of a naturally occurring alloy on Earth, and Tony Stark was a raving alcoholic. In the movie, Tony Stark only has a drinking problem on his birthdays and he’s dying unless he invents vibranium. I know where this is going. Tony’s dad first invented vibranium and created Captain America’s shield with it, so we’ll see that tie in for that movie. But in changing this up in the movie universe, we take away the one thing Tony Stark is sort of best known for: he is his own worst enemy. He doesn’t have some great inner demon to fight in this movie like he did in the first one, he just has daddy issues that kind of show up when the plot requires.

   What happened to the great characters in the first movie? Tony Stark is just annoying, Pepper Potts just dotes, Natasha (Black Widow in the comics) is just kind of there until she gets her action scene. The Avengers Initiative is talked about at a doughnut shop.

   Mickey Rouke…remember in the trailers, we’re promised what should be an epic game of cat and mouse, or some epic power struggle, between Tony Stark and Ivan Vanko? Ivan, who promises to tear down the good name of Stark? What happened to that? Suddenly he becomes a bit player in his own story? We’re barely even introduced to Sam Rockwell’s character, yet he gets more attention in the movie?

   Sam Rockwell’s character manages to be twice as annoying as Tony Stark. That’s hard to watch.

   Don Cheadle just looks bored through the whole movie. Terrence Howard was so much more enjoyable to watch. And how does this work? He’s after the power suit but Tony doesn’t want to give it to him. Tony says in the Senate hearing that he and his power suit are one; his chest piece powers the suit, after all. So how does Rhodey get the power suit to even work in the first place if there’s nothing to power it? Because if Tony Stark just put an arc reactor in the suit yet meant to test Rhodey…the reasoning just falls apart.

   All the elements were there to make a fantastic movie. We even see a lot of these elements get wasted. Tony Stark working to find out the history between his family and Ivan Vanko while he battles his alcoholism. Ivan Vanko setting out to destroy Tony Stark’s reputation while he’s up to his own scheme. Tony knowing he’s having some serious issues, so he willingly gives Rhodey the suit (Rhodey personally of course, not the U.S. government). Rhodey having to become War Machine and learn he may be in over his head as a superhero. Natasha coming as a secret agent to keep tabs on Tony, bugging his house, stealing the plans for building the suit, reporting back to Nick Fury to see if he’s ready to be an Avenger. Pepper Potts figuring out what’s going on with Natasha and Nick Fury. Hopefully some great action in all the right places.

   But no. We got crap. We got a bad movie, with a terrible story and talent terribly wasted. The first Iron Man was a great movie, one of the top superhero movies in spite of its flaws. Iron Man 2 is a thoughtless popcorn flick. It falls in line with Spider-man 3 as the most disappointing movie I’ve seen.
   Rating: 1 / 5
5. Jason says:

   September 1, 2010 at 2:04 am

   It’s been said before, but let me say it straight out: the first one was way better. They shouldn’t have even bothered with a sequel if they weren’t going to focus on writing a good storyline. First, the character development in this movie is practically non-existent. Tony Stark’s character sags back into his original self-loving self-promoting person he was in the beginning of the first iron man movie. The premise of the movie centers around Tony Stark’s fight to keep healthy after discovering his micro-mechanical heart thing is killing him, this isn’t so bad except that most of the story also centers around some sort of Stark Expo show which feels cheesy and doesn’t have the polish of having been really thought out.

   Not only are the characters pretty flat, but the storyline feels flat and disjointed. Movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, The Dark Knight are both movies that are very tight and the storyline and character development drive the movie forward. This movie feels cheesy, lost and like it’s made for kids. The Avengers feel squeezed and forced into this movie which really sucked. I really liked the first Iron Man and in general LOVE super-hero movies being a big fan of the X-Men movies, Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, the Spider-Man movies and enjoyed the Incredible Hulk.

   The action in this movie is even just a little predictable and is lacking in any sort of epic feel. Unlike the singular focus of the first movie, this movie is lost in sub-plots and make you wonder if you’re feeling sick like Robert Downy Jr. is on screen. The only thing worthwhile about this film was the few fleeting moments of humor and Sam Rockwell’s great job of being a villain which was quite convincing. If I could I’d give this movie less than one star.
   Rating: 1 / 5