Iron Man 2
(Reviewed on 05/13/2010)
The Marvelous ROSSMAN
The Robert Downey Jr.'s stint as Tony Stark in the original Iron Man movie is the stuff of legends. He plays Stark perfectly, capturing his bravado, chutzpah, intelligence, and MASSIVE libido. The movie itself was a pretty good origin story for one of Marvel's tentpole superhero series, but without the RDJ it wouldn't have made half as much in the box office.
At the end of the original flick the sky seemed to be the limit for where they could go next: they introduced Nick Fury and SHIELD; they had hints of the Mandarin with the Ten Rings terrorist sect; they had Rhodey raring to go with War Machine... It seemed they couldn't go wrong. But instead of just plowing forward with those already conceived ideas, the film makers brought in a couple other Iron Man heavies in the form of Stark's big industrial rival, Justin Hammer, and the super villain known as Whiplash. True, they did fully convert Jim Rhodes into an Iron Man himself (in the form of the suped up, guns-out-the-ass, silver War Machine), but, well, it just wasn't where I would have taken the franchise. But who the hell am I?
So what's it all about, you question like a high school dropout who's faced with a jigsaw puzzle with more than two pieces? Iron Man 2 is all about Tony Stark dealing with his late father's giant shadow (both good and bad elements), a douchey senator who wants the Iron Man armor for military purposes, a life-ending allergy to his new robotic heart, Tony going all self-destructive with his shortened life (causing grief to his friends ad shareholders), corporate greed and backstabbing assiness, and some drunk Russian Rastafarian-looking dude who claims that Tony's dad raped his own dad out of millions (who is also looking for revenge... Painful and humiliating revenge). There's a whole shit-ton of crap going on in this 2 hour flick. Almost kinda too much, and not even about stuff that I was hoping for.
We start off with Tony Stark opening up the Stark Expo (a new age World's Fair to celebrate peace and technology to come) in Iron Man style (with tons of hot, lickable dancers, and a pretty sweet light show), but behind his facade of peppy alcoholicness we see that his blood is slowly being poisoned by the glowing life-support arc generator buried in his chest, and there's not a damn thing he can do about it (well, other than build a unit that houses the arc OUTSIDE his body). Soon Tony is delivered a subpoena to appear in front of the US Senate and answer charges that he's keeping a weapon of mass destruction in his private possession and not sharing it with his loving government. Justin Hammer is introduced as the lame and pussy-like competing weapons manufacturer who's gunning for Stark Enterprise's vacant hole in the defense budget, but his company is as inept as he is, and he still fucks things up and gets brushed aside whenever Tony enters the room. This makes him angry enough to team up with an angry white Russian who thinks that all Starks owe him something because he was raised in Soviet Russia. He may have a point there.
Anyway, the Russian guy (whose father helped Tony's daddy make the original arc generator back in the 60s) makes a cute mini arc thingy just like the one that powers the Iron Man armor, and he uses it to run his own super suit, thusly becoming the villain known as Whiplash. Then he somehow knows that Tony's going to get inside a racecar at Monaco (despite the fact that not even Tony's friend and now CEO of Stark Enterprises, Pepper Potts, nor his new hot secretary knew he was going to do this), and then Whiplash strikes, whipping the shit out of all the race cars in his way to get a shot at the big man himself.
He's stopped (..............surprise!), and arrested by the police, and Tony's free to continue to self-destruct. But then the dicky Justin Hammer busts ol' Whippy out of prison, fakes the attempted murderer's death, and gets the Soviet cybernetic genius to start fixing up his own robots in order to show up his rival at his own Stark Expo. Alliances are then forged, broken, pissed on, and remended, Nick Fury throws out tantalizing hints about the future of the Marvel film universe, and then in the end Iron Man, War Machine, and the Black Widow kick evil's ass but good. Oh, and Stan Lee plays an infinitesimal cameo as Larry King.
No, Iron Man 2 isn't bad at all. When I first walked out of the theater I actually thought it was better than the first movie... But then I went home and rewatched the first movie and changed my mind. Iron Man 2 has bigger explosions, and more hot chicks in it than the original, sure, but the first flick was a lot more streamlined; it flowed along one narrative like a hot brunette skinny dipping and floating down a gentle creek in the middle of summer... Her big, firm, round titties resting on the current, her supple ass just below the small waves.... GOD I love that hot bi---.... that hot bitchin' movie. Sorry, I have RedTube up as I'm typing this.
Anyway, after talking with my friends we all came to the following conclusion: Iron Man 2 is the 70s and 80s college comedy romp of super hero films, with a bit of Rocky 3 and 4 thrown in for good measure. It all starts off with Tony Stark being a little too cocky for his own good, then Dean Wormer (Gary Shandling's asshole senator character) calls him out and puts him on double secret probation while Wormer's ass-kissing number one student (Justin Hammer) tries to knock our party boy down in front of the whole college (or on a national news channel) himself. Tony bests the two of them at their own game with the help of his own party crew (Happy, his driver, and Jim Rhodes), and then he parties on a bit more, with no real goal in life. Then the jocks hit him hard (Whiplash bringing on the pain like the Omegas, or like Clubber Lang or Drago), and Tony has to start to reassess his life. With the help of his cool black friend (Nick Fury), Tony gets his mojo going again just in time to counter the main jock at the big party in the end. Tony gets the girl, gets the diploma, stops the douchebag jock and the brown nosing ROTC rival, and has Dean Wormer pose with him for pictures for the student paper. Big American Dance Party!
Yeah, it's cliched, but it's still a helluva ride. The fights are bigger than the first, and it's quite awesome to see Rhodes as War Machine, but I just hope they make Iron Man 3 a bit more, I don't know, special I guess.
One thing I really liked though is how it is massively hinted that Tony's dad was somehow involved in the whole super soldier experiment that produced Captain America. If Marvel can keep up all these cool references to their entire universe then they can have one of the greatest movie series of all time.
ANGRY AMY
Yeah, I liked the first Iron Man movie okay, but this just seemed to beat a dead fish. Really though, what more can you do with a drunk millionaire in a robot suit? He fights other robots, then he wins, roll credits.
I think I was kind of hoping for more, but whatever. At least it was only 2 hours long. Could have been a lot worse, and a lot more painful.
CHI-CHI Stark
Goddammit! It's just not fair! I can drink Tony Stark under the fucking table, and I'm like almost smarter than him and all, but HE gets to be Iron Man! Not fair.
Well, okay, that one time I wrapped aluminum foil all around my body and walked around town while drinking Jose Cuervo all night, people did treat me like some kind of all-American hero like Iron Man himself, so that was cool. But I bet you a thousand bucks that Iron Man was never Iron Raped up the ass in prison for "public intoxication and ludely having sex with a statue of Ronald McDonald."
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