Kevin's Watch

I watched Iron Man 2 last night at a cinema in the heart of London. Maybe it was because I was jetlagged, but I really didn't enjoy the movie. Tony Stark is just annoying - I'm over the playboy hero, especially one who lacks insight like Stark. Yes, it's tongue in cheek, but the movie screams 'everything about Stark is awesome, even without the suit'. Whiplash was mediocre as a villain, Hammer was played more for laughs and so lacked any sense of threat, and none of the action sequences, barring Monaco and the final fight with the circle of machines, were enjoyable.

2 stars.

Sorry, Iron Man fans.

That is a shame... I was really looking forward to this movie, too.

I don't know - I enjoyed it heaps. My kids rated it higher than iron Man 1.

Of course I trust Lore remembered to watch the little snippet right at the end after all the titles and stuff finished?

I knew that there was something following -

Spoiler

relating to a hammer

. But honestly, I just couldn't be bothered lol

ARGH!! Spoil that, willya????






(jk )

I've heard other, similar, bad reviews about the new Iron Man. It's a shame, I was really looking forward to this one.

-jay

I was dissoed with this movie, it had all the markings of a script/screenplay decided by committee. There were some parts that stood well on their own but the overall offering was disjointed and slapstick. I sort of felt the playing for laughs aspects were straight out rips from Indiana Jones movies and didn't make the trip well and the whole flippancy of the movie's tone stepped outside the parameters of the genre.

I had the feeling that this was one of those "stepping stone" movies that leads to something else and is probably more significant in the development of the Avengers than of iron Man.

I find the real problem with many of these movies is that the first and introductory movie is amazing as it is the birth of the character. But I think the villains are not always developed as well as the hero and one has to counterpoint the other. There are certanly nods in the right direction but when the villain fails then the movie fails. Successful villains like the recent Joker and Green Goblin and even Doc Oc elevate the heros status. I thought the Whiplash character development was poor and with no depth or layers of personality and were referenced from Starks viewpoint not Whiplashes'.

I hope Thor is treated with the reverence a God deserves, he was without doubt my favourite super hero. I assume that Sir Anthony Hopkins will be Odin but the key casting decision must be Loki.

Here's the guy playing Loki:

www.imdb.com/name/nm1089991/

He actually looks like Loki!

As I expected I would, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie! Every bit as fun as it should be.

Stark was over the top, and he had good reason to be. We also got to see, again, just how brilliant he is. (And we see his father's great genius, too. Nice.) He knows particle physics, and knows how to build the machinery he needs with his own hands. We saw him do this in the first movie, being a blacksmith. He understands all phases of the science he works with.

The effects were, or course, fantastic. The whips looked particularly good.


And Pepper and Black Widow... Mother of God!

Xar wrote:Here's the guy playing Loki:

www.imdb.com/name/nm1089991/

He actually looks like Loki!

Yeah, he does look like Loki!

What Lore's NOT telling you is his favorite comic movie is the original 1960's version of Batman, so take his review with a grain of salt.

It's floating at about 75% at Rotten Tomatoes... that's pretty good. Although Iron Man I ranked at 93 after all the dust settled.

I think everything Lore said regarding Iron Man 2 has merit.

But I go to the theater for a movie so rarely that I still found it to be an enjoyable couple of hours.

Perhaps seriously not knowing anything about the comics story lines of Iron Man or The Avengers helps, as it is all fresh and new to me. As I said after seeing Iron Man, I am sure there is a lot implied for fans of the comics which soars way over my head. But I found knowledge of whatever it is was not necessary for my own enjoyment.

What's sad is that people I've talked to who loved it seemed to love it because it was a stepping stone towards an Avengers movie... which doesn't sit well with me...

Menolly wrote:I think everything Lore said regarding Iron Man 2 has merit.

But I go to the theater for a movie so rarely that I still found it to be an enjoyable couple of hours.

Perhaps seriously not knowing anything about the comics story lines of Iron Man or The Avengers helps, as it is all fresh and new to me. As I said after seeing Iron Man, I am sure there is a lot implied for fans of the comics which soars way over my head. But I found knowledge of whatever it is was not necessary for my own enjoyment.

That's pretty much how I see it too.

There was a lot of stuff crammed into the movie, which is what seems to happen to every superhero sequel. It's not enough to have a bad guy; they have to clutter what should be a straight forward story into the pretzel that this one was.

Toxic palladium, questionable behavior, Disney dad and the puzzle, Black Widow and Shield, Whiplash, government appropriation, and rival Hammer is a ton of stuff for 1 movie but the only time I was truly annoyed was when Stark and Pepper continuously talked over each other.

I think what probably annoys the fans is that none of these things got as much attention as maybe they should have. But still, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Time will tell, and the DVD release, if it matches up to the first for me.

Lore, what did you think of the Black Widow action sequence? The shots, the choreography, the moves, etc. really worked IMO. Makes me hope that the next Batman movie has a similarly done Catwoman in it......up until Black Widow, the only female hero I thought was badass was the Silk Spectre in Watchman. And, like aTOMiC mentioned, Mystique from X-Men was badass.

Also (this is for Lore), I went to the 12:15 showing advertised in the paper, found out there wasn't a showing till 4:00, went to the next closest theatre only to miss their 12:30 showing by 15 minutes, decided to go grocery shopping before their 2:15, then had a bolt fall out of my car that is a crucial part of the front end assembly, and ended up going back to the closer theatre at 4:00 because I was afraid to drive my car too much, and I still managed to enjoy the hell out of Iron Man 2. As for it being an Avengers primer, all I can say is it's a normal thing in comics to do that sort of thing; I just ignore the hints (which were thankfully few) and enjoy the movie I'm currently seeing.

Yeah, I'll go along with too much there. That's my problem with Dark Knight. Joker would have been awesome by himself. Two-Face made it unnecessarily long, and he just wasn't necessary.

But IM2 wasn't too long, or anything. It just wasn't necessary to put in the extras. They didn't need Widow and War Machine. One would have been fine. (And since they already had one Iron Man, and since Widow is REALLY fun to look at...) The whole palladium/new element wasn't needed. It did show just how far above the rest of us Stark is, but we already knew that anyway.

I don't remember... Was Fury in Hulk? It would be good to have him in all the movies that lead up to Avengers, I suppose. Seems like the team might be a SHIELD unit?

Fist and Faith wrote:I don't remember... Was Fury in Hulk? It would be good to have him in all the movies that lead up to Avengers, I suppose. Seems like the team might be a SHIELD unit?

Oh...
So Avengers does not equal SHIELD?

...worrying I'm opening a can of worms with this question...

It's just that I have heard y'all refer to an Avengers movie, but only recall references to SHIELD from the movies I've seen so far.

Fist and Faith wrote:I don't remember... Was Fury in Hulk? It would be good to have him in all the movies that lead up to Avengers, I suppose.

Fury was in the 1st Iron Man. Tony Stark was in the 2nd Hulk, at Fury's behest.

Fist and Faith wrote:Seems like the team might be a SHIELD unit?

The Avengers were not a SHIELD unit in the Marvel Universe, but they definitely worked with SHIELD on several occasions.

THEN.........

About 10 years back, Marvel created a Manga-ish line of comics called "Ultimate" this and that, and in that universe the Avengers (called the Ultimates) were a SHIELD unit. It seems the movies are going in this latter direction, at least concerning the SHIELD/Avengers relationship. As Stan Lee said, the comics are the comics, and the movies are the movies; don't expect them to be the same.

Hopefully that adequately answers yours and Menolly's questions.

Fist and Faith wrote:Yeah, I'll go along with too much there. That's my problem with Dark Knight. Joker would have been awesome by himself. Two-Face made it unnecessarily long, and he just wasn't necessary.

Two-Face was thematically necessary. There was no way he could have been cut and to retain the movie's 'undercurrents'.

Mr Fixit wrote:What Lore's NOT telling you is his favorite comic movie is the original 1960's version of Batman, so take his review with a grain of salt.

How can one not think shark repellent makes a great movie???