Iron Man 2

[Rubin Farr]

Probly the summer movie I want to see most (review is spoiler free). Hoping Sam Jackson's screen time is the highlight.

 

http://denofgeek.com/movies/472955/iron_man_2_review.html

[Boxing Day]

Wasn't like an Iron Man movie two years ago?

 

What is up with making a sequel ASAP?

 

The Wrestler's Character looks pretty lame. I bet the 13-year-old fan boys will be satisfied.

[karmakramer]

First one was decent, but this one looks pretty lame imo

[chassis]

Wasn't like an Iron Man movie two years ago?

 

What is up with making a sequel ASAP?

It was fucking HUUUGE. Duh

[Guest Gary C]

High hopes for my favourite superhero.

 

Probably won't be great, and most certainly not as lauded as the Dark Knight, but I don't think I'll hate it. The first was pretty well handled.

[Guest Coalbucket PI]

I liked the first one a lot, but the fight scenes are the most boring bit and they are undoubtedly going to make those drag on forever because thats what films do these days

[Guest Gary C]

Of all the megabudget effects franchises, the slick, well-oiled Iron Man might be the hardest to get a purchase on. He’s guaranteed to make a fortune, but this hero in a metal suit doesn’t have the emotional accessibility of Spider-Man, Batman’s growling rage, or even the lunkheaded sensibility of a Transformer.

It doesn’t help that there’s a near-complete visual disconnect between our flying tin man and Robert Downey Jr, who plays billionaire arms entrepreneur Tony Stark. The computer-generated superhero, with his aerial pyrotechnics and stern, implacable mask, occupies a different movie altogether from Downey, whose job is to wallow slyly in wealth and entitlement, and then sit back when the whizzy graphics take over.

With his new-found bankability and knowingly debauched charm, Downey’s absolutely the right star to do this. He’s essential to everything that’s pretty entertaining about Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2 – basically, its winking awareness of what an obscenely expensive corporate product it is in itself. Like Stark’s many toys and gizmos, it cost a bomb – $200 million – and, like Stark Industries, it’s simply too big to fail.

When the series’ running gags are about Stark’s inexhaustible passion for hardware, his tendency to trash his ludicrous playboy pad without so much as wincing, and all the dough he’s generally rolling in, it’s no surprise that “more is more” is the governing principle of this unrestrained sequel.

More is often more. Mickey Rourke, as a lugubriously-accented Russian baddie called Whiplash, counts as more, even if you can practically see the dollar signs flashing in his eyes. Sam Rockwell, enjoyably smarmy as a rival manufacturer, is right up at the “more” end – he gets the single best scene, delivering a rhapsodic encomium to a state-of-the-art warhead that I guarantee will find a permanent home on YouTube.

But more can be less, too. Not so much a case of too many cooks as too many new ingredients, this invites ominous comparisons to the cluttered and alienating Spider-Man 3. The plot has to shuttle Stark between all manner of conflicts at once.

He’s being set upon by Whiplash because of a badly explained grudge, trying not to relinquish his patents to the US military, needing to prevent Rockwell’s Justin Hammer plagiarising his weapon-suits, and falling out with reluctant sidekick Rhodey (Don Cheadle, replacing Terrence Howard) over Tony’s irresponsible penchant for drunken target practice. If this weren’t enough, the palladium core that both powers his suit and keeps shrapnel out of his heart is slowly killing him.

That’s a lot of fiddly gripes for a single hero to micro-manage, and a movie with no dominant threat or storyline to juggle competently. Plus, there’s Scarlett Johansson, greedily drafted in as a legal aide/secret agent called Black Widow, and so obviously there to up the film’s booty quotient she gets nothing to do but pout, perform a few swivel kicks, and irritate Gwyneth Paltrow.

However much Justin Theroux’s script fails in oomph terms (pretty badly), it’s full of good banter and throwaway grace notes; though not as turbo-charged as the original, it’s funnier and less politically off-putting. The set pieces, particularly an abrupt contretemps during the Monaco Grand Prix, and a clanking set-to between Tony and Rhodey, are handled with a nicely flippant showmanship, without the heaving desperation of most effects showdowns to outdo every other blockbuster in history.

If the movie often borders on smug, it’s equally happy to be only lightly reverent to the comics it’s based on. And I’d defend it as smug on purpose – one long, high-fiving in-joke about its own sure-fire success.

- Telegraph

[Guest Mirezzi]

From the rumors and of course based on the trailers, this one appears to suffer the "too many villains" fallacy that weakened The Dark Knight.

 

I'll still go see it in the theaters, maybe multiple times. Then, I'll return to my cunty but humble abode, don a cape and glue-on mustachio, and defend it here with over 300 posts. Just you wait.

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/iron-man-2-film-review-1004086551.story

[Guest Stoppit]

I saw this today, and enjoyed it. Too tired to go into detail now, but that Telegraph review seems pretty fair.

 

Oh, and there is a short scene after the credits, if you want to stick around for that (I did).

[Guest Blanket Fort Collapse]

kinda excited to see this I must say

[Rubin Farr]

Nobody puts Tony is a corner.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0lOwj88TrQ

[Guest Blanket Fort Collapse]

lol that was just ricky retardo stupid enough to make its way to my heart

[J3FF3R00]

I'll see it but I have a suspicion it will be corny as hell.

The fact they spit out a sequel so soon after the first one makes me suspicious.

Muthafuckas be gettin rich.

[Guest Blanket Fort Collapse]

All trailers point the acting to be on pair with the original that's for sure, I know the action will be more entertaining, the worst I've read is that there's a lot going on and there's a scene the middle that's really slow but important. I thought the dialogue in the original and the trailers for this were more than enough to hold me through a slow mid section so I can guarantee that unless you let the hype expectation train ruin it: if you thought the original was worth the ticket price this will be too.

[Eggs]

Iron Man 2...outta 5 hahaha. Nothing happened.

[Guest Coalbucket PI]

I really liked it, it stayed lighthearted and had funny dialogue. Sam Rockwell is great. A few stupid parts but nothing that really bothered me.

[springymajig]

There's a lot of stuff I could complain about it but nothing that irritated me too much. I thought it was pretty good. But after the first one I was like "I WANT MORE... RIGHT NOW!" after this one I felt like I would be fine if they never made another Iron Man film.

[kaen]

its fun

 

whiplash needed more screen time at the end fight tho, the whole film had been building up the confrontation and it lasted all of about 1min? weak

[Eggs]

1 min. exactly. movie was a big cocktease.

[springymajig]

Yeah actually that was my biggest gripe, the end overall was over way too quickly. Not only the last fight, but everything that came after just felt like "ok guys, let's wrap this up as fast as possible so the audience can go home".

 

And I agree that Whiplash needed more time to develop. He was pretty 2 dimensional. A violent guy who wants revenge, and he likes his bird. That's not a character. I know Hammer was the real villain here (and he was pretty well done) but they still could've made Whiplash more interesting.

[Guest Coalbucket PI]

I was glad the fight scene at the end didn't drag on too long, they normally get boring. That said, it was cut together in a sort of abrupt way.

[Guest Gary C]

Yeah, I watched this last weekend and it was alright.

 

The action scenes were cool, really cool, but there was far too much shit going on in between. Some people I've spoken to felt that the boring parts were still good as they seeked to explore the Marvel universe a little more, but I didn't really get that.

Sometimes it was just really slow and boring.

 

Scarlett Johansson's character was almost invisible and I didn't like how much Happy (the driver) was used. Also that Favreau cast himself in the role and gave himself so much comedic screentime. I'm not convinced when directors cast themselves in films.

 

The final action scene was really good. Something I would have imagined when I was ten years old. Pure comic-book action, but it was really short amongst so much boring billionaire fuckery.

 

What does bode well is that because they're making separate films for each character the Avengers combo-film should be almost nothing but awesome Marvel battles and shit going on.

 

Pray to God.

[takeshi]

It was fun. Mostly though, the film just got me excited for Captain America, Thor and The Avengers. They're weaving the stories together nicely so far.