When something huge comes out in the world of comics, it’s our responsibility to review the living crap out of it. That’s why every regular Multiversity writer will be reviewing Iron Man 2 in this thread this weekend, as this movie is so gigantic that is the type of attention it deserves. I mean come on, it’s a movie launching on the most screens in history, it’s the follow up to a critically and commercial smash, and it stars a brilliant cast including Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and Don Cheadle. This thing is big.
Check out all of our reviews after the jump. As you may have guessed as well, there are plenty of spoilers after the jump.
David’s Take: Following up on the pretty much flawless victory the first movie had upon America is a fairly tough venture, but I think it’s fair to say that Iron Man 2 was mostly successful in its attempts to recreate the success they had in the first one. Mostly.
The whole movie balances on the shoulders of Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark, and once again he was able to successfully pull it off. He handles all aspects of the character so well…the always present genius, the smoothness, the charisma, the boozing…it’s all there. To me though, he actually played Stark a bit bigger this time. I haven’t seen the original in a little while, but if I remember correctly there were moments of quiet contemplation. In this one, he just seemed up all of the time, and I feel as if the balance there was missing. Whether that is Downey’s fault or the scripts fault, I’m not sure. But still, no one on the planet should have played Stark, and RDJ did a damn fine job as per usual.
For the new characters, I have to say I liked Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer the most, quickly followed by Scarlett Johannson’s Natasha Romanov. Rockwell was awesome in that he was a glorious sycophant one second but also a dirty backstabber at the same time. His two faced nature and chop shop vendor line delivery in some scenes (the scene where he’s selling weaponry to Rhodey for the War Machine armor is glorious) make him a perfect opposite number for Stark. Hammer wants to be Stark, and because he cannot be him due to inherent flaws in his persona, it drives him to make some really terrible decisions. Bonus points to all involved for having a Wilhelm Scream inserted in when Hammer is demonstrating his armor early on.
Johannson wasn’t perfect. She really wasn’t even that great. She was kind of a blank slate as per usual. But she did pull off two things that are ridiculously important to Black Widow: impressive physical feats and looking like a smoldering temptress 24/7. Mother of god she was hot in this movie, especially whilst infiltrating Hammer Industries and kicking ass while she was at it. I immediately was clamoring for a Black Widow silent film after the movie ended.
My problem with this movie was mostly based around the plot though…it always kind of had this feeling of “is this it?” Most of the movie, when you get down to it, was Stark vs. Palladium. Don’t know that villain? Turns out it’s just the element inside his Arc Reactor that is quickly killing him. All of the moments with Stark and Potts were superb, and their chemistry is just as charming as it was in the first movie. They just were surrounded by a little bit less. The movie as a whole felt a bit disjointed in parts, making a whole but with the parts never really sticking together properly. Not only that but the pacing seemed askew at parts, replacing the brisk and gleeful pace of the first with a fast/slow/fast thing that kind of took me in and out of the movie.
However, there were a lot of moments that bowled me over and entertained me like none other. The aforementioned Black Widow vs. Hammer Industries moment when juxtaposed with the War Machine and a fleet of drones vs. Iron Man scene. The War Machine and Iron Man vs. even more drones and a mega Whiplash. The Mjboner causing incident. The Senate floor scene. There was a lot here, but it didn’t flow together as well as I felt it should. It could have used some tweaking on the editing floor (and it could have used someone telling Mickey Rourke to enunciate).
Continued belowThankfully, my personal expectations weren’t that high. I wanted to be entertained…I was. I didn’t expect The Dark Knight, I just expected a mostly fun romp with some crazy cool action. That’s exactly what I got.
Final Verdict: 7.0
Walt’s Take: Before seeing Iron Man 2 I read many reviews claiming it didn’t even come close to the original, and for the first half of the film I felt like I was going to end up agreeing with those critics. The pacing for the first hour or so of the film was just…off. Some parts just went too slow, while other parts went way too quickly to make up for those slower parts. It was just awkward (also, Rourke’s weird cries of anguish at the beginning were just a bizarre way to start the movie).
However, once we got to our first instance of Rhodey using the armor, the movie launches off into the action-packed fun that I loved in the first film. The dialogue which was really only people talking loudly at the same time in the beginning (kind of reminded me of Bendis on a bad day) goes back to being entertaining and witty, and man are the action scenes near the end incredible. The one big problem I had with the ending was the final showdown between Iron Man, War Machine and Whiplash. It was far too short! Here comes Whiplash in his big, shiny new suit, and after a little bit of him stomping Tony and Rhodey he was taken out with a gamble. I know the last ditch effort is the standard Hollywood fare, but I expect a bit more time spent struggling before it comes up.
All around, the acting was great. Robert Downey Jr. continues to prove that there is nobody that could play a better Tony Stark and there probably never will be. Gwenyth Paltrow plays a solid Pepper Potts, though she’s a bit different than she is normally presented in the comics. Other than the aforementioned screams, Mickey Rourke played an excellent Whiplash, but he was most definitely overshadowed by Sam Rockwell’s great performance as Justin Hammer. I’m glad that Don Cheadle replaced Terrence Howard as War Machine; while Howard was great in the first film, I couldn’t see him being the badass the script called for in the sequel. Even more surprising was Scarlett Johansson’s performance. Sure, it wasn’t great, but it was much better than I was expecting from her (which wasn’t much at all). Of course, it goes without saying that Samuel L. Jackson is actor of the year for all years.
One thing that I was hoping would make it into the film that didn’t was the Extremis system. I figured since they released the motion comic and reprinted the trade right before the movie was released, it was a possibility. Oh well, here’s hoping it makes it into Iron Man 3.
Final Verdict: 8.0
Gil’s Take: It’s finally here. After two years of eager anticipation, Iron Man 2 was unleashed to the world. But how would it do? Would it be The Dark Knight or Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer? In truth I found it somewhere in the middle, admittedly closer to TDK than RoSS. I really enjoyed it, as it had fantastic performances from the entire cast, up to and including Scarlett Johansson, someone I’ve never really enjoyed. In fact, I would say she and Mickey Rourke’s Ivan Danko stole the show from the leads, the former being the first time I can say I enjoyed her in a role. I think this is a great possible set-up for a Black Widow spin-off movie, and I can only imagine it’ll be better than Elektra.
There was a subplot that I thought could have done without. For the sake of not spoiling those who haven’t seen it yet, I won’t say what that subplot is, but as a whole, I thought it was unnecessary.
In the end, I had a LOT of fun watching it, and there were times where I just smiled because I just loved what was going on. There were only a few moments that I was not so hot on.
Continued belowFinal Verdict: 8.0 Two repulsors up
Matt’s Take: Iron Man is obviously, as everyone has stated, the biggest super hero sleeper hit of all time. Absolutely no one expected anything from it, including comic book nerds such as us, and that’s why it ended up being so good. It featured great performances, a good story line, and a definite rewatchable quality, and the fact that in general (at least from my perspective) we went in to the movie expecting to see a story not even half as (generally) accurate to the comic books made Iron Man the hit that it was, pulling in over 300 million at the box office domestically and holding a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 93% (in comparison, the Dark Knight – which many believe to be the greatest super hero movie of all time – holds a 94% rating).
With Iron Man 2, the tables are all turned. Now we all expect them to acquire the film from the same golden goose that magically laid the original egg. Everyone is going in with extremely high expectations, especially with high profile actors like Sam Rockwell and Don Cheadle joining the cast and a 30 million dollar increase to the budget. On top of THAT, Marvel has announced it’s plans for intertwining Avengers movie, so now all the big nerds are going into the film looking specifically for SHIELD and Captain America to make background appearances, etc. That’s a lot of pressure.
The film does hold up, though. Here’s the thing about Iron Man 2 that was most odd for me: as far as Tony Stark is concerned, the character that exists in comic books today is nothing like the character on screen. He’s undergone some massive changes to his character in the books (including a mind reboot) to the extent that the movie accurately represents his already outdated suit. So right off the bat, I have to put myself in the mind set of this Tony Stark/Iron Man creation within a completely different universe and judge him as I would judge Ultimate Tony, for example. And on a singular level, as a story that emulates previous tales and put’s it’s own “fresh spin” on it, Iron Man 2 is an enjoyable movie.
Of course, the movie is self aware now. As I was saying earlier, we have expectations, and the people behind the movie know this. It’s shown as Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal is turned up to eleven and the snark comes out beyond normal snarkiness. The movie also allows itself to make self aware comments, such as when Don Cheadle first arrives (which was hilarious). But due to our expectations and the film makers expectations, it’s here that I feel the film tries too hard at some points to make certain things work.
There’s three scenes in particular that really stand out in my mind as examples of this (and obviously there will be huge spoilers here). The first is the big race car scene, in which Tony Stark just decides to take his race car from his driver and go to town with it. Ok, he’s an eccentric playboy billionaire, whatever. But when Whiplash arrives (which doesn’t exactly make sense because Whiplash clearly meant to attack the race cars yet Stark didn’t decide to race until the day of), we then watch Happy drive the company Rolls Royce on to the race track to help save Stark and get him his briefcase armor. This to me seems a tad bit unrealistic even in an unrealistic setting. Then we have a scene later where a drunk Tony Stark spends a good five to ten minutes beating on Rhodes in a stolen set of armor to DJ AM’s greatest hits (and Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock” of course), which is fun to watch to a certain extent, but does a good job of dragging on and focusing more on the “silly” than the “bad ass,” which takes away from the film. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Tony’s apology scene to Pepper Potts when he brings her some strawberries, which is pretty much the definition of dragging on.
The film’s pace overall does not flow as well as the first one. The first movie really hit all the bases in what it needs for a super hero and villain origin, and it doesn’t ever really feel like it’s dragging on. Iron Man 2, like I mentioned, does have this issue. Act 1 is fairly good, setting up all the appropriate players in the game and establishing a lot of what we can expect to pay off later in the film, and as soon as we’re in Act 2 we begin to see all these new and different elements to the Tony Stark/Iron Man universe that frankly we didn’t need to see, or could have cut down a bit. Act 3 is phenomenal, and ultimately redeeming for the film (with a freaking half an hour long robot fight scene!), but there were times in Act 2 where even I began to lose interest in a scene. I’m all for drunk Tony Stark and Demon In A Bottle-like references, but there’s only so much I can take in the movie before I want them to move on.
Continued belowAside from that though, the film is great to watch. The action sequences, which are the film’s obvious selling point, are tremendous and well shot. The camera is steady through out the fights and you can clearly see what’s going on, which is a problem other movies can have when it comes to big action sequences. Iron Man and War Machine versus twenty million drones inside some kind of odd green house was phenomenal, and the dialogue really added to it. Whiplash is a bit underused in his fight scenes, and his first appearance has a good deal in slow motion, but the fights with Iron Man are well coordinated. The Black Widow at Hammer Industries scene in particular is an obvious ode to proper fight coordination. And it’s not just the action sequences, but a lot of the dialogue heavy scenes work well too, such as Tony at the Senate in the beginning of the film, and even Rhodes and Hammer when building the War Machine suit up. There is a lot of great stuff to watch in the film.
The cast is phenomenal, too – at least, all except for Johanssen. Newcomer Cheadle fills the role of Rhodes gracefully, and although the character feels downplayed for the first half of the movie, the friendship between him and Tony Stark/Robert Downey Jr works really well in the last part of the film where Cheadles dawns the War Machine suit. Sam Rockwell also manages to steal his part of the show as a very maniacal and bumbling villainous form of Justin Hammer. Justin Hammer in the comics is an older British gentlemen who works against Tony from behind a desk chair, but Justin Hammer in the comics is an obvious parallel to Tony Stark with his younger age, hyper-active demeanor, and willingness to operate on his machines directly – and Sam Rockwell kills it (which is no surprise, really, because Sam Rockwell is amazing). Would it have killed him to do a British accent? I don’t think so. I understand the parallel, but it still doesn’t hurt to push slightly more forward for accuracy. And of course there is Mickey Rourke, as Whiplash Dynamo, in a wonderful portrayal as the film’s main techno-villain. Rourke went to amazing lengths to bring a sense of accuracy to his character, and aside from a cheesy “Noooooo” at the beginning of the film, I really got into his character as a believable angry Russian His scenes with Rockwell were also pretty amazing, featuring Rockwell’s Hammer trying to impress Rourke’s Vanko and never really making it into his graces.
My one complaint with acting in the film goes to Johanssen, which anyone who knows me could’ve seen coming. My problem with her is that I feel she’s in the film to be eye candy versus a decent actress in the role. I have seen movies with her in it that I’ve liked, sure, but I’ve never seen her in a role that I’ve liked, and as the ultimate super spy femme fatale that is Natasha Romanoff, I just know they could have found someone better. Look at Rourke – he played a Russian guy, so he went to Russia to research the role, stayed in a prison, and worked on his accent. Look at Johanssen – she came, she under acted, she spoke in her normal voice, and she left. Let’s be honest, anyone could play that role better, and it really did bug me that she didn’t even at least try to fake an accent. It’s not that hard, and I’m pretty sure Hollywood has coaches for this kind of thing. I understand that they obviously wanted to play up the sex factor of her character with seductive dialogue (“Is that dirty enough for you?”) and shots of her in her underwear, but I don’t think any of it was necessary, and I would’ve been happier without Tony Stark googling her for model shots.
All in all, Iron Man 2 is a fun film, and as I said to my friends as we left the theater, worth the buy on blu-ray. It doesn’t fully live up to it’s predecessor, but I don’t think we could expect it to after the first one killed as a sleeper. This is a summer block buster movie now, and in it’s main goal – which is to entertain – it works perfectly. I got out of Iron Man 2 a lot of what I expected, and I loved the final fight scene (which obviously matters a lot in this type of film), so on that note I give Iron Man 2 my seal of approval. It drags on a bit at times, but it has enough redeeming qualities about it for me to want to actively watch it again.
Final Verdict: 8.5
ULTIMATE VERDICT: 7.8
