Iron Man 2
Apr. 29th, 2010 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
loopychewOkay, I wasn't as surprisingly blown away at this one as I was the original, but it was, in fact, an awesome movie and well worth watching. Stay tuned; if you haven't heard, there is a post-credits sequence.
So, I've been spending the past few hours (pre- and post-dormancy) trying to figure out what about the movie didn't make me feel like I did the original, and I think part of it was that the origin story was so brilliantly told, and involves tons of scenes in which Tony is figuring things out by himself, mostly in the form of planning out the revisions of his suits. It involves him recording the many, many hilarious phases of his testing and yelling at robots and such.
Here, they've kept one scene for that, and it is an awesome scene, but it's still just the one. He does bark out a few orders at Dummy throughout the movie, but I guess since Dummy's more of a background performer and less an active player in this one that's part of it.
This movie manages to find an awesome way to give someone who is the very personification of a man-child a mid-life crisis of sorts, and it is quite brilliantly done, if resolved perhaps a little too cleanly and quickly. Still, scenes of Tony Stark becoming (even more) immature and crazy work their way into the script and are both hilarious and awesome (one of these scenes involves the late DJ AM making a battle mix, and any battle mix that throws in Daft Punk's "Robot Rock" is OK by me).
Sadly, they changed the scene shown in the trailer where he tries to get Pepper to kiss him so that he jumps out of the aircraft carrier alone. Pretty sad about that, because I loved that scene in the trailer (and admittedly, the kiss she gives the helmet was hot).
Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, while not as hammy as Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stane (no "IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!" moment, but plenty of other slimy moments to make up for it), manages to infuse a legendary amount of smarm into his character, and is also brilliantly acted. You want to punch him in the face every single moment he's on screen pretty much, and he's every bit the Evil Twin Tony as you might imagine him to be (I understand he's different in comics canon, but I don't care).
The camera loves Scarlett Johansson, for good reason. Like, seriously. Every single scene she's in does nothing but serve to make her hotter. Any scene in which she fights? HOT. The only thing that could have made her hotter is if she used a Russian accent as Natasha Romanov.
Much as I love Don Cheadle, there is nothing I could've wished harder for in this movie then for Terrence Howard to not have been such a douche while filming the first movie. Don Cheadle is an accomplished actor, and he actually manages to replicate the easy chemistry between Rhodey and Tony that was present in the first film, but I don't really picture Don Cheadle as USAF Jockey the way I do Terrence Howard, and I feel the film (ever-so-slightly) suffers for it. Plus, you know, continuity.
Mickey Rourke's character... the less I say, the better for you. He is awesome, and I wish they used him more in the film. Also, I wish the one Russian person I know were present to translate some of the unsubbed Russian dialogue used. Guess I'll have to wait until someone submits it to IMDb trivia.
The action set pieces, as you'd expect from being storyboarded by Genndy Tartovsky (best known actionwise for Samurai Jack and SW: Clone Wars, although everyone here should have knowledge of Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls), are spectacular. They manage to be insanely flashy, violently destructive, yet containing all the coherency lacking in, I dunno, a Michael Bay sequel.
And finally, as alluded to before, the chemistry and off-hand conversation that made the first movie so charming is back in full force. Tony and Pepper arguing, occasionally face-to-face, occasionally over comm; Tony and Rhodey talking to one another both in and out of suits, Tony and Justin's not-so-friendly banter, Tony yelling at Dummy, and so on, so forth. I love it, and the way the dialogue snaps back and forth had me eating out of the movie's hand.
In conclusion, worth the ticket, totally, even if it lacks Sabbath to close like the first one did.
So, I've been spending the past few hours (pre- and post-dormancy) trying to figure out what about the movie didn't make me feel like I did the original, and I think part of it was that the origin story was so brilliantly told, and involves tons of scenes in which Tony is figuring things out by himself, mostly in the form of planning out the revisions of his suits. It involves him recording the many, many hilarious phases of his testing and yelling at robots and such.
Here, they've kept one scene for that, and it is an awesome scene, but it's still just the one. He does bark out a few orders at Dummy throughout the movie, but I guess since Dummy's more of a background performer and less an active player in this one that's part of it.
This movie manages to find an awesome way to give someone who is the very personification of a man-child a mid-life crisis of sorts, and it is quite brilliantly done, if resolved perhaps a little too cleanly and quickly. Still, scenes of Tony Stark becoming (even more) immature and crazy work their way into the script and are both hilarious and awesome (one of these scenes involves the late DJ AM making a battle mix, and any battle mix that throws in Daft Punk's "Robot Rock" is OK by me).
Sadly, they changed the scene shown in the trailer where he tries to get Pepper to kiss him so that he jumps out of the aircraft carrier alone. Pretty sad about that, because I loved that scene in the trailer (and admittedly, the kiss she gives the helmet was hot).
Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, while not as hammy as Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stane (no "IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!" moment, but plenty of other slimy moments to make up for it), manages to infuse a legendary amount of smarm into his character, and is also brilliantly acted. You want to punch him in the face every single moment he's on screen pretty much, and he's every bit the Evil Twin Tony as you might imagine him to be (I understand he's different in comics canon, but I don't care).
The camera loves Scarlett Johansson, for good reason. Like, seriously. Every single scene she's in does nothing but serve to make her hotter. Any scene in which she fights? HOT. The only thing that could have made her hotter is if she used a Russian accent as Natasha Romanov.
Much as I love Don Cheadle, there is nothing I could've wished harder for in this movie then for Terrence Howard to not have been such a douche while filming the first movie. Don Cheadle is an accomplished actor, and he actually manages to replicate the easy chemistry between Rhodey and Tony that was present in the first film, but I don't really picture Don Cheadle as USAF Jockey the way I do Terrence Howard, and I feel the film (ever-so-slightly) suffers for it. Plus, you know, continuity.
Mickey Rourke's character... the less I say, the better for you. He is awesome, and I wish they used him more in the film. Also, I wish the one Russian person I know were present to translate some of the unsubbed Russian dialogue used. Guess I'll have to wait until someone submits it to IMDb trivia.
The action set pieces, as you'd expect from being storyboarded by Genndy Tartovsky (best known actionwise for Samurai Jack and SW: Clone Wars, although everyone here should have knowledge of Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls), are spectacular. They manage to be insanely flashy, violently destructive, yet containing all the coherency lacking in, I dunno, a Michael Bay sequel.
And finally, as alluded to before, the chemistry and off-hand conversation that made the first movie so charming is back in full force. Tony and Pepper arguing, occasionally face-to-face, occasionally over comm; Tony and Rhodey talking to one another both in and out of suits, Tony and Justin's not-so-friendly banter, Tony yelling at Dummy, and so on, so forth. I love it, and the way the dialogue snaps back and forth had me eating out of the movie's hand.
In conclusion, worth the ticket, totally, even if it lacks Sabbath to close like the first one did.
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-29 11:30 am (UTC)*goes checking to see where IM2 is/will be playing*
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Date: 2010-04-29 11:43 am (UTC)* Iron Man released two days ahead of US
* Iron Man 2 released nine days ahead of US
Figured I'd post an advance review just in case anyone was interested.
Also, to rub it in. ^_^