by Benovite » May 6th 2010 11:14 pm
I'm gonna preface my review of Iron Man 2 by saying that I often love the movies you hate. Phantom Menace? Love it. X-Men 3? Love it. Spider-Man 3? Love it. Let's take it back to SUPERMAN 3. Yep, love it. And you know I love Star Trek 3, but then again I'll assume most do.
So what do I like about Iron Man 2? It's the classic "pride cometh before the fall" story. Starks is a major dick in this movie. I actually hated him in the first 30 or so minutes of the movie and started thinking 'this movie sucks! it's just more Tony Starks but now he thinks he created god.'
Then things get interesting. Whiplash, Justin Hammer, Blackwidow and death all come knocking on his door, along with Nick Fury.
That's what I love about this movie. Tony Starks is getting pulled in all different directions and he can't make heads nor tales of it. For all his pride and arrogance, he's clueless and he knows it. And it could kill him.
Now let me just say that before seeing this thing I didn't have much if any background on Scarlett's Blackwidow character.
I assumed she was a villain, that's my level of ignorance of the Iron Man comics- no idea who this chick was, although I would read about the lack of a Russian accent and that she was a spy on certain sites. So when it turns out she's part of SHIELD and with Nick Fury, ah ok I was genuinely surprised- in a good way obviously. Incidentally I love the vagueness of her character initially, and even Starks is curious and confused by her. I think that's part of the genius of this movie. Unless you know her character, and face it most people do not, Starks essentially voices the audiences curiosity about her character. And she kicks major ass effortlessly so.. and she's hot, 'nuff said.
Rourke's Whiplash is bad ass. Mickey Rourke is kind of a scary person period, in this role he's really scary, especially during the Monaco scenes when he casually walks on the track and starts cutting formula 1 cars in half. That shit was dope and easily falls under the category of 'never seen that before!', which makes it seriously cool. Although then the cars starting crashing into each other to avoid hitting Whiplash and there's the extreeemely overused 'explosion behind a main character' shot. But hey again, never seen formula 1 cars smashing into each other and exploding. And when Whiplash zeros in on Starks and starts unleashing his barrage of electro whipping- it's pretty scary because he's crazy and serious about his craziness. Like I wouldn't want to be around this guy at that moment.
But as much as the Monaco race sequence is talked about and touted, I have to say I was more impressed by the end battle involving War Machine and the drones. It's just massive and really well done.
There's no shortage of coolness in this movie. That to me is what makes it so good. A lot of movies these days lack the cool factor, but IM2 has it to spare. Even when Starks is drunk off his ass clowning around in his Iron Man suit in front of bitches throwing watermelons for him to blast- it's still cool. These scenes in particular are shot really good, very darkly lit and yet you get a good sense of where this mans mind is. He's losing it because he knows he's losing against his biggest foe of all: death. And when Don Cheadle dons the Mark 2 suit and fights Iron Man, it's pretty nice. Again lots of coolness.
All of it is shot pitch-perfect, as if there really is no other way to film this stuff. Some of it is corny but a lot of it is cool and gets the point across without flaunting it.
For example; I especially liked the scene in which Tony is watching old movies of his father. Tony is reminded of how much of a bastard his father was and suddenly as if from beyond the grave his father talks to him through the old movie. It's pretty deep. Sure it can be construed as corny but it's also deep.
There are a lot of times when Starks appears to hit a really low point and his character is minimalized. Again I like this approach, as if he's essentially treated as a big spoiled kid- because in reality he is one. It's only his braveness in confronting danger when he rises above his own human limitations and saves the world.
Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer is a serious slime ball. I've seen Rockwell in other movies act like an asshole but he really perfects it in this movie. I'm glad they allowed his character as much screen time as he gets, which is a lot.
So to me this is a real sequel, it expands upon the characters and the scope of the Iron Man movies.
And maybe more importantly, it makes me want to see it over and over again, which is something the first movie didn't do for me.