Saturday, May 08, 2010

"Iron Man 2" mini-review

Maybe if I make my posts shorter, I'll do them more often...call it the Twitter-method. (Incidentally, if anyone would like to follow me on Twitter, I'm @jaytay96).

Anyhoo, I saw Iron Man 2 yesterday and enjoyed it a lot. Most of it has to do with Robert Downey, Jr.'s cheeky-but-layered take on Tony Stark; he's really creating something memorable with this character. I also enjoyed Sam Rockwell (so great as "Guy" in Galaxy Quest) as Tony's slimy weapons-manufacturing nemesis. The first 2/3 of the movie borders on comic-book greatness, setting the stage for several very interesting and complicated character-driven conflicts. Only some of those stories really bear fruit by the end, but none of them are truly botched either...an amazing feat for a movie that is trying to do so much (anyone remember Spider-man 3?).

As a novice to Marvel's wider repertoire, I didn't really appreciate all the Avengers references, since they occasionally took the focus away from the movie at hand to pimp some of Marvel's upcoming releases (Captain America, Thor, etc.). But it's a small complaint for a movie that never feels like anything less than good old-fashioned, big-budget fun. I'm eager to see what Downey & company have in store for Iron Man 3. (***1/2 out of four)

2 comments:

ammonc said...

I liked it, but not as much as the first. I can’t put my finger on exactly why I didn’t like it as much as the first. The villain seemed very forced and he is able to do amazing things without explanation (like when the chauffer smashed him with the Rolls Royce without injury). Also his motives for wanting to destroy Anthony Sparks are not very believable (something about the villain's dad stealing the arc technology 40 years earlier, sitting on it until his death bed, holding a grudge... I just kept wondering what either the villain or his dad had been up for the last 40 years).

Overall, I liked the movie, just slightly less than the first (which I loved).

I definitely agree with your Spiderman III comment.


Ammon

Stinsonian said...

We saw it tonight for Bry's birthday and LOVED it! We both kept talking about the humor in it... very funny. I love that you feel like you're watching a rock concert/action movie. Awesome.