Iron Man 2
I liked Iron Man 2. It was like nerds duking it out in real battlesuits and not in Halo.
But I probably need to start by saying: I am also a shameless blockbuster movie fan. Six years of studying literature in academia and I still have no qualms about punting a declared modern classic of autobiographical drivel for trite, Hollywood-fueled extravagance. Which is *not* to say I have no standards — the recent remake of Transformers, for instance, tried my patience harder than the original 80s movie cheese. But Iron Man 2, I have no problem.
Contrary to current popular votes of expectations against it, I’d even go as far as to put it on par with the first Iron Man movie Favreau’s team made. And why not? As a banter-loving explosion aficionado, I laughed where I was supposed to at all the superficial literary references and giggled whenever a character made a snappy comment. (e.g. At the description of a missile so advanced, “It will make Ulysses look like it was written by a child in crayon; and then read it back to you.”)
I do enjoy a good, silent villain, and Mickey Rourke’s Ivan Vanko was nothing but terse and hardworking. It was refreshing that the villain didn’t feel a need to run around killing people all the time or shooting things in order to be evil. He did his bit, beat up Iron Man, and then spent most of the rest of the movie sitting around looking smart w/very stylish glasses on his nose. It was like, “Yeah, we already saw you half naked earlier, so your badass credentials are good.”
Pepper Potts and Tony Stark’s bickering crescendo showcased the two actors’ chemistry at its best. Neurotic, insistent, and yet charmingly familiar, their sputtering, non-canon romance underscores an interesting dynamic of two people who know each other’s habits all too well, and yet seem to know nothing about the other at all.
Scarlett Johanson, playing her “stony face” siren role (wait — does she have any other?) rocked the Black Widow leather as secret S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Natasha Romanoff, and to the choreographer and director’s credit, they gave her several a semi-realistic scenes of combat wherein she actually takes down a her opponents in several short, blink-and-you-miss them moves across the floor. Admittedly, I still can’t figure out why the hell she needed to be in this movie at all, but it was nice to have some real curve candy on screen instead of Gwyneth Paltrow’s skinny, shapeless butt.
I did miss the amiable face of Terrance Howard, however, who fell out of favor with the movie because of a contract dispute and was replaced by Don Cheadle. Replacing Rhodey took away from the established familiarity of the characters, and I couldn’t help but picture him instead in Cheadle’s place. (Don Cheadle, you will forever be to me Hotel Rwanda, so get out of my heartless blockbuster movies, already!)
Some people complained about this movie having too much going on, and I agree, but in the darkness of the theater , the pacing and story unfolded just right. And at the end of the day, it comes to this: can you, or can you not enjoy the adventures of a megalomaniacal narcissist who claims, “I have successfully privatized world peace”? Because I can.