A painting of me

Iron Man II

   2 June 2010, early morning

I watched Iron Man II with my friends over the weekend. I haven’t been to a cinema in far too long. I think my summer resolution should be to watch a movie a week. It’s not even that hard a challenge. I used to watch so many. Anyway, Iron Man II is enjoyable, but i’d say much weaker than the first film. Like any comic book movie it has a comic book plot: a Russian scientist (loosely) linked to the Stark family is out to get his revenge on Tony Stark; if that wasn’t bad enough, Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit is killing him. This probably would have been enough for a solid film, but apparently it wasn’t enough for the people producing the movie. The folly of many comic book films is that they try to include too many characters and side stories. (I think X-Men II is the only film that pulls this off. It’s also probably the best comic book film ever made.) In Iron Man II we get to see: the origin of War Machine; Black Widow doing spy stuff; Nick Fury trying to recruit Iron Man into the Avengers; etc. I think Scarlett Johansson is really hot, but she really doesn’t need to be in this film; give her a film where she gets to be hot for the whole 2 hours. All of this extra junk distracts from the main story arc of the movie. What saves the film is the acting. Everyone in Iron Man has been cast perfectly. There is some great chemistry between Robert Downy Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow; I loved all of their scenes together. Mickey Rourke plays a really great villain. It’s impressive when actors manage to pull of not looking ridiculous when delivering ridiculous lines while wearing crazy costumes. The fellow who plays the weapons dealer Hammer is great, and he delivers the best monologue in the film. If you enjoyed the first film, you’ll probably like the second. The Iron Man series has thus far been one of Marvel’s better transitions from comic books to movies.

The official Iron Man web site.

 

Comments

  1. You think that Xmen 2 is the greatest comic book movie ever made? It is a brilliant movie, but have you seen the Dark Knight? Or Spiderman 2? My little boy brian still considers Superman 2 the greatest film ever made. But my adult self has been too afraid to rewatch it to see if it holds up.

  2. As soon as I typed that I had to stop and reflect on the Dark Knight. I still think I enjoyed X-Men II more. That opening Night Crawler scene is amazing. Superman 2 I haven’t seen in a million years. I need to watch it again. When I wrote that, I was thinking all these modern comic book films. The post Bryan Singer world.

  3. X-Men 2 had the most badassest moment in the history of badassery. When Wolverine and Iceman are chilling in the kitchen (see what I did there?) and the soldier bursts in and Wolverine pins him to the fridge and screams. It’s just the most holy crap awesome ass kicking moment ever.

  4. And X-Men 2 had Kelly Hu.

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