Iron Man 2

(Movie Review)

 As usual, I’m a few years late on my movie reviews.

 But it’s worth remembering that when this movie first came out back in 2010 it generated a lot of hype and excitement.

 Which is strange to think about now given what a totally forgettable movie this was.

 It starts out with a pretty lackluster beginning.  It moves into a short and unspectacular action scene.  And then the movie just seems to tread water for an hour while Tony Stark has a personal crisis (yawn) and works through his father issues (double yawn.)
 And then we get to a big climatic action scene at the end which, admittedly, is not half bad.  But I’m sure it looked much better on the big cinema screen.  Much of the flying robots, chases, and explosions were wasted on my small TV screen.

 So, definitely not the best movie I’ve ever seen.

 On the other hand, there were several things that worked well about it.
 Robert Downey Jr. is great, of course, as he was in the first Iron Man.
 A friend of mine recently said, “All these Iron Man movies aren’t that great.  If Robert Downey Jr. wasn’t in them, they would all be awful.”
 Which is probably true.  But so what?  There are tons of movies that are saved purely by the actors that carry them.  And Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man is able to carry a lot of this movie.

 Sam Rockwell is also good playing against Robert Downey Jr.  Rockwell plays Hammer, a man in the same line of work as Tony Stark, and someone who thinks he is able to joke and schmooze just as well as Tony Stark but whose constant jabbering just comes off as annoying instead.
 (For instance, when trying to sell weapons, Hammer jabbers about a special bullet:
 “It’s capable of busting a bunker, under the bunker you just busted.  If it were any smarter, it would write a book.  A book that would make Ulysses look like it was written in crayon.  And then it would read it to you.”)

  But it works because the audience is in on the joke—we know he’s supposed to be annoying, and we see him constantly contrasted against the genuine smoothness of Tony Stark.

 And even though the story lags a bit, the writing is not altogether terrible.
 There’s some clever foreshadowing going on, where Vanko is muttering about how there will be no men in the suit, and how drones are going to be better.  At the end of the movie, we find out exactly why he was planning this, and what he is going to use it for.
 I also thought it was clever that the method by which Iron Man and War Machine defeat Vanko was also something they had discovered by accident earlier in the movie.

Continuity

 As these Marvel movies lead up to the team-up movie Avengers, there are increasing efforts to tie them together.
 Captain America’s shield makes a cameo appearance.  The Scarlet Widow is introduced in this movie, and Nick Fury has an expanded role. And the post-credit teaser at the end seems to lead into the Thor Movie.
 And yet there are hints that the writers might not have had everything perfectly planned out at the beginning.  (At the end of The Incredible Hulk movie, Tony Stark makes a cameo appearance to say he’s putting a team together, implying he was in charge of recruiting and organizing the Avengers.  This movie now has Stark completely on the outside of that team.)

 It’s a cool idea to take the inter-connected world of comic books and translate it to the big screen.  But if you’re going to do this, then you need to start keeping the actors consistent.
 There are of course, several things beyond the studio’s control. If an actor dies, for instance, or refuses to come back, or has a conflicting contract, or is in drug rehab, et cetera, then all of this can’t be helped.
 But if the actor really wants to come back, but the studio goes ahead and replaces him anyway over that same actor’s objections, then this is really not cool.
 According to Wikipedia
On being replaced, Howard stated, "There was no explanation, apparently the contracts that we write and sign aren't worth the paper that they're printed on sometimes. Promises aren't kept, and good faith negotiations aren't always held up.

 I think it was a mistake to replace the Terrance Howard as James Rhodes with Don Cheadle.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Don Cheadle.  But I think it was more important to keep continuity here.
 It’s water under the bridge now of course, but for what it’s worth, I think this was a terrible decision by the studio.

Note:

* So what was the deal with Vanko's bird?  I really thought that was going to develop into a plot point, but it never ended up going anywhere.  He just complained about how he didn’t get the bird he wanted, and then was that just the end of that story thread?  What was the point of that?

Link(s) of the Day
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Iron Man 2: Movie Review (Scripted)