Iron Man 2 Review
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I’m not sure what the complaints are all about. Iron Man 2 is great.
Going into the movie I worried it might suffer from the villain overload that doomed movies like Spider-Man 3 and Batman Returns. But even with multiple antagonists in the form of Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) and even Senator Stern (Garry Shandling), I felt the movie did a good job in balancing real story and some kickass action.
Robert Downey Jr. is great again as Tony Stark/Iron Man and I enjoyed how the movie somewhat tackled the comic book character’s drinking problem. I’m pretty sure the movie will be succesful, so I hope it continues to encourage Hollywood to put real actors in these comic book settings. Gwyneth Paltrow was even bearable (I find her to be amazingly overrated, in general). Scarlet Johansson was the sexy femme fatale she was supposed to be, and her spotlight scene felt eerily like Hit Girl’s “big kill” moment in Kick Ass. I would have liked to see more of Don Cheadle as Rhodey/War Machine if only because I know Cheadle is a great actor, and the relationship between Rhodey and Tony Stark is assumed to be pretty strong within the context of the movie but we dont get a lot of detail.
I thought the plot was tight, easy to follow and not convoluted or too out there. The movie never really lagged, going from snappy repartee, villains plotting, action, to actual character development.
As I’ve previously noted a million times, I’m much more a D.C. guy than a Marvel follower, but I loved to see the contours of the Avengers being formed, especially with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) playing the version of Nick Fury designed after Samuel L. Jackson in The Ultimates (a comic I recommend especially if you’re not a diehard Marvel fan). The post-credits kicker got me excited, I must say.
Overall, great stuff. Good summer fun, and another good comic book movie. My only lament is that outside of Batman, D.C. is just sitting on its butt while this is going down. Green Lantern can’t come out soon enough!
Overall: 4/5
22 Responses to “Iron Man 2 Review”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
Great review! I just saw the movie too and it’s great!
I still don’t know what people saw in the first Iron Man. It was an overcooked turd-burger.
I agree, Oliver. I liked it a LOT more than the first one. There were complaints about Rourke and Johannsen being “wasted” in the movie. I thought they struck a perfect balance with their screen time. The plot flowed smoothly, the performances and direction was better and the ending didn’t feel tacked on.
They made the movie for FANS OF THE COMICS, which most comic adaptations never do. I think that’s why critics are trying to pan it. It wasn’t made for “them”. This is easily in my top 10 comic adaptations of all time. Off the top of my head I’d go
1. Spider-Man 2
2. The Dark Knight
3. Blade/Blade II
4. Batman Begins
5. Hellboy/Hellboy II
6. Watchmen/300 (giving Snyder props)
7. Sin City
8. Superman/Superman 2
9. Men In Black
10. Iron Man/Iron Man 2
And again, to belabor the point because I know you’re a DC Guy (it seems out of stubborn loyalty rather than an actual preference over Marvel), but Marvel characters are infinitely better than DC characters. The only DC character that is always “movie ready” is Batman. DC characters are so one dimensional and shallow because that’s how they were CREATED. DC concentrates on a characters POWERS first and the person second. Marvel concentrates on the PERSON first and powers second.
Marvel characters are just so much more fleshed out and in the hands of a good screenwriter and director will be good movies. The reason the Iron Man movies are good isn’t because of a suit of armor, it’s Tony Stark himself that’s the attraction (actually putting the suit on distracts from the movie IMO).
It’s difficult to make a good Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, etc., movie because when they AREN’T using their powers, we don’t really care too much about them. That’s always been the weakness of non-Batman DC comics. Which is why I was so happy when they created the Vertigo line which wasn’t chained to all of those Golden Age DC characters.
This is so amazingly misguided I don’t know what universe you’re on. Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Hal Jordan, and Barry Allen are easily as fleshed out as their Marvel counterparts. I don’t know when you stopped reading DC comics, but you’ve painted with an amazingly broad and inaccurate brush. These (and other DC characters) have depth to them far beyond their superpowers. Your commentary reeks of a Marvel Zombie who’s tied up in a caricature of DC comics rather than the actual product.
While I prefer DC, I don’t think Marvel stuff is worse or not as deep, it’s just not totally for me. Both companies produce great work.
Yeah, that you have Blade anywhere near this list confirms my suspicions below. Blade? Please.
I like Archie comics. When’s Big Moose & Midge going to make it to the big screen? I see Sam Worthington as Moose…
ps: Sorry, Ol, two comments on a single thread. Not a troll, just suffering a bit from Fanboy Fatigue this weekend.
Oliver, I was curious as to whether or not you’d read this:
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/05/06/the-racial-politics-of-regressive-storytelling/
Also, the point that DC’s big heroes weren’t as fleshed out in the beginning is a valid point, but it hardly holds today. (The really early silver age stuff with the Flash mostly involved him being late to meet his shrewish girlfriend, and Green Lantern was mostly concerned with getting hit in the head by random objects. And thank God they got rid of Pieface.) My problem with DC is the fact that their myriad attempts to make their universe cohesive left it far more confusing to understand than Marvel’s “Everything happened, oh, about ten years ago, now” approach to continuity. Continuity in super-hero comics will never be an absolute science. Of course, Marvel didn’t have to shoehorn in their acquired properties, (like the Marvel family and the Charlton heroes) and Crisis on Infinite Earths remains a flawed masterpiece despite creating as many problems as it solved-necessitating (in the loosest sense of the word) Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis. To me,the problem’s not with the players, it’s with the field.
Funnily enough, my brother’s a DC guy (mostly Batman) and while I loved Final Crisis, his response was “Never give me anything by Grant Morrison again.”
I will totally agree that DC’s regular attempts to fix their continuity are stupid. I prefer Marvel’s method.
Also,your brother is right.
I’m not childishly stubborn like you. I read DC comics every week. See, I actually READ both DC and Marvel comics and have for over 30 years. I don’t have a fanboy devotion to either so I can easily critique DC and not feel like someone insulted my mother if someone critiques Marvel.
DC characters aren’t nearly as interesting and nuanced as Marvel characters. Again, that’s how they were CREATED. DC always concentrates on making someone the “most” something. Flash is the fastest man alive. Superman is the strongest. Batman is the Worlds Greatest Detective and on and on. It’s always about the powers. Marvel flipped that and made it about the people.
Only Batman consistently had great books, which is why it hasn’t been rebooted a million times like Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, JLA, (can I stop now?)
Final Crisis was an abomination. AGAIN, the DC method of “focus on the Big Bad of the Day and how the heroes will defeat it”, was born out AGAIN.
You didn’t give a damn about any of those characters and it was just confusing. Again, this is an editorial decision on DC’s part. Writers come in hamstrung to not really do anything interesting with their core characters. It’s not a coincidence that some of DCs best books are with newer characters. And still, DCs best aren’t nearly as good as Marvel’s best. They’re not even in the same league. Even in the early 90′s when Marvel lost its mind and had like 100 books on the shelves, half of which didn’t deserve to be published, their best books were still better than DCs.
Again, Vertigo is the sweet ambrosia in DCs books. Sandman, Preacher, Hellblazer, etc were oustanding series. DC isn’t even the second best publisher out there as far as consistently good books. I’d put Dynamite (The Boys, The Lone Ranger), Image (for The Sword alone) and Dark Horse above DC.
Final Crisis was an abomination. AGAIN, the DC method of “focus on the Big Bad of the Day and how the heroes will defeat it”, was born out AGAIN.
Yes, Marvel has *never* done that.
Siege. Civil War. Secret Invasion. No sirreee, only DC has giant team-up crossovers. Seriously, what are you smoking?
It’s not a coincidence that some of DCs best books are with newer characters.
Actually, one of DC’s best books for the last 2 years has been Green Lantern, one of their oldest characters.
And still, DCs best aren’t nearly as good as Marvel’s best. They’re not even in the same league.
Spoken like a close-minded fanboy who just keeps looking silly boosting his or her team.
You’ve spent how many comments on this thread blindly asserting the same thing without evidence here? Seriously, dude, not even the people who work for Marvel are as fanboyish as you are.
I absolutely love the Robert Downey Jr. Tony Stark character. The banter is always fantastic. And he’s such an over-the-top jerk at all times.
Wow, Oliver. Again, in your attempt to defend DC you prove my point. The interesting part of Siege, Civil War and Secret Invasion was NOT the “big bad” it was what the crisis brought out in the characters. The actual fighting was secondary. Did you even READ Civil War? It was more about how the Superhuman Registration Act MORALLY divided the heroes. It was about how far Tony Stark would go to enforce the laws. The actual physical conflict was secondary.
The same thing with Secret Invasion. The juice wasn’t watching heroes fight doppelgangers, it was all about the distrust it sewed in the heroes. THAT’S was what was interesting about it. The whole “who do you trust?” angle. This is something Marvel has mastered and DC never grasped. The same thing with the current Second Coming storyline. It’s all about the moral and physical sacrifices the X-Men make for Hope. Cyclops has sanctioned assassinations and murder. Nightcrawler gave up his life. The X-Men are questioning if she’s worth it. SHE questions whether she’s worth it. It’s not about the fights and the “solution”. DC is ALWAYS about the “solution” to the current crisis. Marvel is always about what the crisis is doing to the characters.
It’s so silly how defensive you are. I’m FAR from a Marvel fanboy. If anything, I’m a Dynamite and Vertigo fanboy. Noone critcizes Marvel more than I do. Most of their books shouldn’t exist (do we really need 4 Deadpool books?).
YOU are the fanboy. YOU are the one offended by my criticisms of DC. YOU are. You can criticize Marvel until you’re blue in the face. I simply say that DC’s best books aren’t even CLOSE to Marvels. What Marvel has done with the Avengers the last 7 years is better than pretty much any run on any DC book ever. And I’ve been reading DC books since probably before you were born.
But you take this as me criticizing a dear relative. I’m no Marvel fanboy, I’m a comic fanboy. And DC is low on my comic totem pole. I don’t have any in my box any more after the Batwoman run on Detective Comics ended (an OUTSTANDING run). I think her own book is coming out soon. And I still read The Authority, which is a Wildstorm book.
You need to stop taking it so personally and lashing out. Or read better books.
I’ll leave it for others to look at your ridiculously silly defense of Marvel in a thread where I didn’t attack Marvel in a blog entry praising a Marvel movie and make the determination as to which of us has an entire farm’s worth of egg on their face. Jesus.
I’m confused by one thing. During Stark and Fury’s conversation at the end (SPOILER ALERT) they make reference to Iron Man being a suitable Avenger, but not Tony, and Fury says he had in mind Stark being a consultant. What’s going on here? Is this a clue that Robert Downey Jr. will not play Iron Man in an Avengers film? Anyone else get that?
Hal Jordan, Diana, Clark Kent, and Bruce Wayne are every bit as interesting as people as the superpersonea they inhabit. I started my comic-book existence largely as a Marvel-girl, and the story-lines from the ’90′s fit my Gen-x tastes at the time, and yes, I think the “crises”of Marvel are perfectly confusing, but for what it’s worth, there is plenty personality behind the icons of DC.
To just use the obvious, Bruce Wayne is a little paranoid and obsessive. He actually *is* Batman, and his Bruce Wayne persona is the fiction. Whereas Clark Kent is a Smallville-raised adoptive alien child who is sometimes Superman, an entity of nearly unthinkable strenghth. The intersection of their “straight” life and their “hero” life” is their story. And so it happens that Diana is an Amazon princess who is sometimes a mythological construct, but is also a flesh and blood woman (who I think needs better story lines….grrr…) who gets pissed at injustice. (She knows she can kick Superman’s ass if she had to, or kill a Max Lord. And face the consequences–she is ready to take that shit. She would give epic story if the right actress could be found.)
Marvel has great characters–don’t get me wrong–but I just don’t think DC has been properly mined. There is still gold in them-there thrills.
I love how Robert Downey Jr makes Stark such an over the top narcissist–but who is also aware he’s a narcissist. It’s like he’s meta about himself. He’s an egomaniac, and he’s aware he is, and okay that he his. It’s like he acknowledges it as part of the “hero” schtick. I really like how Robert Downey plays Stark–bold, brilliant, enthusiastic, always-on.
Really. I’m so fanboyish for Dr. Doom that I refuse to even talk about the Fantastic Four movies, and you’re embarrassing Marvel Zombies.
And when you say things like:
“What Marvel has done with the Avengers the last 7 years is better than pretty much any run on any DC book ever.”
. . . you’re making a ridiculously subjective and unsustainable proposal. Few people love the Avengers and the Fantastic Four as much as I do, but I wouldn’t hold the last seven years of Avengers work in the same esteem as Alan Moore’s work on Swamp Thing-which only became Vertigo after its completion, as well as Gotham Central and James Robinson’s Starman. And that’s just off the top of my head.