Iron Man 2
That was certainly something. The film started off promisingly enough, Stark is dying, Mickey Rourke is the villain, and the government wants the Iron Man suit. Had you told me all of this before I went into the movie I would have been hyped as fuck, so what went wrong?
I suppose I should talk about the good first so let's talk about the best thing about this movie: Black Widow. She wasn't in it too much but she completely stole the show whenever she was on screen. I certainly rolled my eyes when she was first introduced with the modelling pics but thankfully it payed off in a way that didn't feel forced. If you needed to get close to Stark and you're a woman then having sexy pictures of her online certainly doesn't hurt your chances. My favorite scene in the movie was when she was infiltrating the Hammer Industries facility and it really makes me wonder why they didn't do a Black Widow spy movie instead. In fact, looking at the list of movies there still hasn't been one. Why not Marvel?
*Insert cool gif of Black Widow here* I'm too scared to google one in case it ends up spoiling something from one of the Avengers movies.
Pepper is better than she was in Iron Man in every way. Granted all they really had to do for that was not have her not so subtly call another woman trash for having sex so it wasn't a high bar to jump over, but it's still progress. She was on point during the climax. If she doesn't become part of SHIELD in a later movie I am going to be so disappointed. She seems like she would be perfect for it.
They followed through and gave Rhodes a suit! Sadly I think what led to him getting the suit was poorly done. So Stark is so drunk that he nearly kills a person with his suit (yet he's still sober enough to perfectly control the suit?) and your response is to then get in a suit yourself to fight him? These suits could kill either one of you if you're not careful and you decide to fight your friend when he's clearly not in a right state of mind? It just completely boggles my mind that this is in the movie. Did they have a quota of action scenes they needed to fill, didn't fill it, and this was added last minute when they realized? That's really the only thing I can think of because this scene makes absolutely no sense to me. Outside of that I still liked Rhodes and it was awesome seeing him team up with Stark in the final fight (even if that fight was awful).
I guess I should mention my thoughts on Don Cheadle since he replaced Terrence Howard as Rhodes, huh? I think Cheadle did just fine in. I slightly prefer the way Howard played the character but I think it might just be because I saw him as Rhodes first. I wouldn't be surprised if I preferred Cheadle by the time I finish all of the movies.
Do I have to talk about Happy? I really don't want to talk about Happy. He's dumb comic relief and the movie would have been better without him.
Ivan started out really promising. He's played by Mickey Rourke who has the perfect look for playing a villain, he's smart, he clearly gives absolutely no fucks about anything other than his father and birds, and he dual wields shock ravagers from Ratchet and Clank. All of this sounds amazing so what happened? The race scene and the prison escape made it look like they were building him up as not only a major threat, but a persistent on, and then they just stick him in a room for almost the entirety of the movie from that point forward. Why would you do this? While watching I thought that the final fight was going to make up for this. Oh how very wrong I was. Honestly calling it a fight is giving it too much credit. The entire thing is over in about a minute and nothing really happens during it. All Ivan really does is grab them and then he's finished off in a single attack. THIS is how you use a villain you've been building up? maybe when it comes to villains in these movies it would be best for me to just set the bar on the floor so they can't disappoint me.
Now we reach the guy that acts like he wandered onto the set right after hosting a Ubisoft E3 press conference. I really don't see why we needed another corporate villain. Hammer is not interesting, funny, or threatening so why should I care about him? If they were going for a pathetic villain to contrast with Ivan then they should have made sure Ivan was a good villain first.
"Maybe I'll even get laid" Nah.
My feelings on Stark in this are mixed. I'm fine with most of the antics he pulled because he was dying, but there were a few things I felt ended up being out of character. I'm talking about that party and the stupid Rhodes fight scene. I'm sorry but I don't buy that Stark after the first Iron Man would just keep on going after almost killing someone. But he was drunk you say. I call BS on that, if he was really so drunk that this wouldn't phase him then he'd be passed out not performing trick shots in a crowded room and fighting his friend. Other than that though I was pretty happy with him. It was nice seeing him in different state of mind.
Is the post credits scene from The Incredible Hulk not canon? Stark tells Fury that he declined joining SHIELD but he was talking to what's his face in order to gather information to find and recruit The Hulk. It's either that or this movie is set between the two.
Overall I feel that Iron Man 2 is mediocre which made it hard to think of things to write about (which is why this post took me over an hour to write). It' not awful though so if this is as bad as it gets then I'm happy.
Well that's Iron Man 2. I'll see you all on Saturday with my write-up of Thor! Mjölnir being in New Mexico better not mean it ends up being set on Earth. I want a movie set entirely in Asgard.