I didn’t dislike it as much as you did, but it really lacked the spark that the original had. I hated all the promos for the as of yet nonexistent Avengers movie, and i didn’t like the Tony/Pepper shipping. In the comic she’s involved with Tony’s bodyguard Happy. The action scenes were the least part of the original. What made that movie was the witty repartee and chemistry between the characters. In this move Sam Rockwell is the only one who succeeds in that way.

As for song? I’d put the Dresden Dolls’ cover of BS’ War Pigs.

More comic geek stuff ahead… This movie was somewhat burdened with a clumsy attempt to incorporate the “Demon in a Bottle” plot line from the comic. Rhodey actually substitutes for Tony while Tony is being treated for his alcoholism, and is afterwards rewarded with armor of his own.

hodey actually substitutes for Tony while Tony is being treated for his alcoholism, and is afterwards rewarded with armor of his own.

yeah, pablo, that was one thing that irked the hell out of me about this version of Rhodey’s “origin” story. I hated that they had him turn on Tony, though I didn’t mind that they attempted to show Tony’s alcoholism (even if it was brief and quickly glossed over). Him being an alcoholic was a big part of his character and I was surprised that they went there in a summer movie (when he peed in his suit I was dying laughing).

I enjoyed the movie overall, while I thought the Pepper/Tony scenes could’ve been cut I did think Downy Jr. looked like he was having a lot of fun as well as Rockwell. I’d say my biggest beef was that they felt the need to put the main villain in a giant robot suit, just like the first one. They’re really gonna need to think of something else for IM3.

I actually wished they’d dropped the alcoholism thing completely. Because the constant drinking works very well to shore up the screwball comedy effect, and bringing in the sad drunk thing is way less fun.  Not that I’m downplaying alcoholism or anything, just that it’s kind of a depressing distraction in what’s supposed to be a fun movie.  The potshots at American culture are way more fun, but in this movie, sadly incoherent.

I didn’t hate it as much as you (went in with very low expectations and allowed myself to be mindlessly entertained), but lots of inadequacies nagged me later.

Mostly I didn’t like the way they handled Rhodey, which was extra disappointing because I really like Don Cheadle. I didn’t feel much chemistry between the two, and the whole fight scene at the birthday party just didn’t work. It made no sense. And not just because you can’t possibly shatter that much glass without getting some blood out of the spectators.

I was very pleasantly surprised by Scarlet Johansen’s performance, and I now can’t wait to see her in a kick-ass action movie of her own. Really, she totally rocked. As did Sam Rockwell.

I like Gwyneth Paltrow, but I kinda hate how the Pepper Potts character is super together and in control in one scene and then screamy girly twit in the next. I also hate how they dress her in impossibly tight skirts that make it so she can’t walk, but don’t actually look good.

And I have nothing to say about the electric whip bad guy because I think he’s going to go down as one of the most forgettable villains in history. He’s already approaching whatshisname status in my head.

I was disappointed that Pepper accepted the CEO position when it was offered to her. If she had been such a super ambitious corporate ladder climber would she have ever accepted a job as Tony’s personal assistant in the first place? Not everyone wants to rule the world, or a mega-corporation. I did however love that distracting thing on her desk.

Phoebe- One of the big weaknesses of comic books is the lack of interesting villains. With the exception of Batman’s, there really aren’t any.

I read the old Iron Man comics from the beginning, and a lot of the first movie was predicated on the origin story Stan Lee wrote for Iron Man.  Tony Stark was a millionaire industrialist, who was captured by the North Vietnamese, and forced to work on a weapon for them.  He had been wounded, and knew that a piece of shrapnel was working its way closer to his heart, and instead of a weapon created a chest piece which would keep the shrapnel from reaching his heart.  The rest of the armor was attached to that. 

In its way, the first Iron Man movie stuck to that line, though not in Vietnam.  The movie had Stan Lee’s premise from which to work, and that had to help.  Of course, in the 1960s, “millionaire playboy” wasn’t defined in the comic books.

I haven’t seen Iron Man 2 yet.  I assume that I will sometime, but it’s not a priority with me.

What, an Iron Man themed-songlist without Black Sabbath?

I like Stereolab more when krautrocky than loungey. 

I like The Cardigans’ cover of Sabbath’s “Iron Man”

It was, like the first one, a fun but forgettable little romp.

I thought the Tony/Pepper scenes were actually an improvement over the original, where Pepper really had nothing at all to do. Totally agreed that Rhodey got the short end of it, though. The character deserves more. As I said on the other thread where Iron Man came up, James Rhodes is the one guy on the planet other than himself that Tony actually trusts with Iron Man armour. Iron Man 2 didn’t give us any indication of why that is, which was a shame.

Also, I didn’t pick up on any sort of suggestion in the film that Tony’s “I’ve just privitised world peace” thing was supposed to be anything other than a narcissistic boast on his part. I don’t think we were meant to believe it, certainly not by the end of the film. If anything, the actual military guys in the film—Rhodey, his general buddy, etc.—were the only ones who didn’t end up looking like jackasses. They were just trying to do their job, and their desire to get Iron Man (or the Hammer knock-offs) was based on their perceived need to stay competitive. (Failing to criticise that impulse is a valid flaw to call out, but it’s not the point at hand…) Hammer Industries are supposed to represent the attitude of pre-Iron Man Stark Industries as well as the corner-cutting “lowest bidder” stereotype of military contractors like Halliburton. If anything, I think the conclusion we’re supposed to draw from the Hammerdroid attack was that there is a place, even in a world where reliance on drones is acceptable, for duty-driven people like Rhodey, who one assumes would be found in a professional military but probably not so much in private mercenary firms.

At any rate, I agree that this movie toned down the criticism of the military-industrial complex from the first film, but I think that was done more out of a desire to not just do the same movie all over again than any sort of pro-PMC bias. Iron Man 2’s overarching theme was about legacies and building a future, and it was also a personal story of Tony specifically coming to terms with his father’s legacy and realising that he can’t afford to just ignore it (or his own warmongering past) like he magically received a blank slate after escaping that cave in the Mark I armour.

All the rest aside, it seems like the one thing absolutely everybody agrees on is that Black Widow was the best thing about the movie. I’m not a huge Scarlet Johansson fan, but I love the Black Widow character in the comics, and it’s really awesome to see her get such a prominent treatment in this film. I really hope it leads to something more, ideally a Black Widow solo film.

#3- in the next film, the villain will be a giant robot wearing an even bigger giant robot suit.

What, an Iron Man themed-songlist without Black Sabbath?

Indeed, what the HELL???

completely agree with pinko punko at #12- the cardigans version is totally the one for this instance.

the sabbath version is just a little too sacred to be applied to something actually glamorizing private technomilitary princes.

/snark.

“the sabbath version is just a little too sacred to be applied to something actually glamorizing private technomilitary princes.”

Played during the credits for the first movie, however.

Joshua N-

Interestingly enough, David Hayter, writer of the first 2 X-Men movies was supposed to have gotten his director debut working on a Black Widow movie that he had written. Sadly, Hollywood had one of their “eek, women suck” brainfarts and kyboshed that idea around and about the same time Warner Bros also kyboshed Joss Whedon’s potential Wonder Woman.

So, basically, we’ll never see an actually good, interesting superheroine movie, because Hollywood won’t allow them to get made. Ever.

I didn’t like the glorification of privatization and the buffoonish Senator (not that many Senators aren’t buffoons though).

And it did make me recall reading that Downey Jr became a Republican in jail (WTF??).  But other than that, I really enjoyed it.  It was just a good time.  Nothing to get serious over.

Black Sabbath?  It’s Iron Maiden you should consider!

Mrs DBK and I like it.  We found it entertaining and that’s all we asked.  We didn’t analyze it so much, just kind of went with the flow.  Mind you, my expectations are much lower than others here, from what I can gather.  Movies generally stink much worse than this.

It’s all about the bass, my dahlinks.

We very much liked the movie. I was actually surprised how much plot they managed to include, and felt that the character development worked pretty well.

I didn’t see any issue with Pepper being completely together in an organizational and boardroom situation, and getting all “screamy girly” when an apparent mass-murderer is literally tearing the limo to pieces around her, or losing it a bit when she gets unexpectedly yanked out of a major explosion at the last minute.

I did have a problem, beyond my suspension of disbelief, with the Congressional hearing, though. Not that they’d have one, but the idea that they wouldn’t simply instantly pass a law unanimously banning private ownership of the Iron Man suit technology. If they can ban assault weapons, and presumably, private ownership of things like tanks and anti-aircraft missiles, why the hell couldn’t they effortlessly ban non-military ownership of something like that?

I can suspend disbelief if they completely ignore the issue. But not when they drag it out onto the table like that. And yes, the patent violations on stealing the suit and taking it to the competition for upgrades would immediately have had every military supplier filing class-action suits to protect their patents.

I love that they are quietly gearing up for the Avengers movie, and tying in all the various parts of the franchise. The Captain America and Thor tie-ins were cool and not overly obtrusive. They’re setting up that this is all happening in the same universe. Works for me.

In general, the more a movie is hyped (ie: pimped out in commercials for fast food, etc), the more it tends to suck colossal amounts of donkey dong.

What really annoys me is how Downey and Paltrow really don’t have any chemistry so to speak of in the film - at least the way that it’s edited. It was “Meh. What?”

I’ve seen Sam Rockwell kick so much ass in “Choke” and other movies. I just odn’t buy him as a weapons manufacturer. I think he was phoning that one in. Or, like I said before, they could have just edited that movie to within an inch of it’s life to jam more effects in there. And the effects are really cool but yeah. I wish that we could have seen more of Tony’s struggle with his father’s legacy (Silver Fox FTW!) but he didn’t really even seem to be struggling with facing his own impending death at all either.

We saw it at the drive-in last night and Ms. F thanks you, Amanda, for the “suck shit-covered maggot balls” line, as she felt it so perfectly encapsulated her opinion of the film. It was awful: the original was witty and fun, but this was neither. Its politics were incoherent, its villain dull, and poor Ms. Paltrow is starving to death before our eyes. And Scarlett Johanssen (sp) is just about the worst actress I’ve ever come across in a major Hollywood movie. God, she’s awful.

One of the things that bugged me, oddly enough, was the way the government (by way of Rhodey) was able to just steal what would become the War Machine suit - and then give it to the competition - and no one said anything.

Um, hate to break it to you, ACG, but the usual thing is for the gov to hold out the idea of grants and juicy contracts to little guys, drag things out til they go under than buy the tech as a fire sale and award use to one of the big boys.  the only thing unrealistic with this is that Stark Industries would be too big.

The “suck shit-covered maggot balls” line strikes me as incredible hyperbole actually. I’ve seen some awful movies in my time and trust me Iron Man 2 is not in the lower quartile.

typist, I mean on a scale of maggot-balls per unit of marketing expenditure, or per unit of goodwill from the previous film. “The Room” is a much worse film, but it didn’t get the exposure.

Yes but Iron Man 2 does not suck maggot balls when compared to other hyped big budget blockbusters either. The last big budget blockbuster that I saw that was as good as Iron Man 2 was, well, Iron Man. That’s going back two years. There was also Dark Knight. But all the blockbusters from 2009 were pretty subpar.

My main complaint about the Tony/Pepper shipping is that it’s going to try and sabotage the Tony/Steve shipping.

Because goddamn, if those two were any more explicitly a couple, they’d be Apollo and Midnighter.

it’s a sequel, and not as good, and has way, way more plot holes. (how did Tony know Pepper was standing near a soon-to-explode drone?)

I liked Mickey Rourke. he reminded me of Charles Bronson, with a bad Russian accent.

it occupies “Better than Avatar” for a ranking slot. which isn’t high praise, but isn’t feint either.

And it did make me recall reading that Downey Jr became a Republican in jail (WTF??).
Comment 20—AnglScarlett

I’ve only seen one, less than reliable, source on that. Best I can tell, he seems largely apolitical; if he even is a Republican, it’s pretty much only in November, he’s not raising money for (or even giving money to, according to HuffPo’s Fundrace) Republican candidates or campaigns, and he’s not supporting Republicans publically, at least not loudly.

I did have a problem, beyond my suspension of disbelief, with the Congressional hearing, though. Not that they’d have one, but the idea that they wouldn’t simply instantly pass a law unanimously banning private ownership of the Iron Man suit technology. If they can ban assault weapons, and presumably, private ownership of things like tanks and anti-aircraft missiles, why the hell couldn’t they effortlessly ban non-military ownership of something like that?
Comment 23—Lymis

Presumably there were opinions on both sides of the question of whether private ownership of the Iron Man suit was in accordance with good public policy. Obviously the committee chairman believed it wasn’t, but others thougt there might be. The purpose oof the hearing was for the chairman to convince the public he was right, and build up support for such a law—pace the Tea Party set, Congress doesn’t generaly like to pass laws in the face of widespread public opposition.

(how did Tony know Pepper was standing near a soon-to-explode drone?)
Comment 32—karpad

1) He could see her.
2) Some sort of tracking device, or he found her phone or someting.
3) There were drone parts all over northeast Queens, so it was the way to bet.

Pick one.

I liked it.

Sure, the ethical questions of the movie would play differently if it was realistic. But it’s not.

I liked it. I didn’t like it nearly as much as the original Iron Man, but it was a good movie to eat popcorn to.  Now that I have a little time in between explosions to think about the plot it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but Robert Downey Jr’s smirk is a national treasure.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned the spectacularly bad movie science yet. I know it goes with the territory, but when he made a particle accelerator out of his plumbing and used it to discover a new element, my belief could not suspend itself that far.

Was he using the plumbing to run the particle accelerator? The stupid thing on that was that he had to change the prism and cut through the other stuff in the room.

Al Giordano loved loved loved this, and Amanda hates it. I liked it OK. It was too much at 10 50 but any movie is too much at that amount.

A fine matinee movie, with flaws.

I compare it to the Star Trek reboot; that one it actually pissed me off as I started thinking about it. This one I think will hold up as decent schlock.

Liked Downey, like Paltrow, thought Scarlet as Black Widow was hot and smart, the Senator and Hammer were ehhhh, the Avengers stuff was great but…

Loved the dad stuff. The old skool stuff.

I thought the bad guy was fine; I thought I’d hate Mickey Rourke more. Their first fight was really way cooler than the other fights, imho. During the day, too - lotsa dark (less pixels to animate?) in the final fight.

I totally called the ‘secret will be hidden in the map’ clue the second he half-unveiled the model city.

The electrical engineer who works for my husband saw the movie this weekend.  She was totally confused, being from India and not into comics and all, so he is loaning her the first one.  I don’t know if that will help.

I saw this over the weekend. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first one, but I do enjoy Robert Downey, Jr. and Don Cheadle and I’ve been itching to see a movie lately.
I found the thing incredibly disappointing, even based on my severely lowered expectations. It made little sense, only a few of the jokes worked and I actually began to get angry at all the nonsense plugging the Avengers movie. The whole Samuel Jackson thing was just loaded in as advertising and I found the little Marvel plugs/jokes irritating.
Plus, Scarlet Johansson manages to suck the life out of anything she’s around; she seems to know only one facial expression. Her fight scene didn’t work at all for me, just not believable in any way.
God, movies suck anymore. At least I’ve still got The Good, The Bad and The Weird to look forward to this week.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned the spectacularly bad movie science yet. I know it goes with the territory, but when he made a particle accelerator out of his plumbing and used it to discover a new element, my belief could not suspend itself that far.

Dude, this is a movie where he invented a power suit in a cave, and where strapping iron around yourself renders you immune from the effects of inertia.  It’s goobldeygook, but it’s allowed under “suspension of disbelief”.

So, yeah, I’m late to the party, but I had finals.

Honestly? I LOVE the fact that Tony refused to give the military the suit early on. It’s sort of like the scientists’ revenge for getting screwed out of nuclear decision making; a Szilard Petition with added firepower. The first movie implied pretty heavily that Stark Industries only made weapons for America and her allies (at least as far as Tony knew), and where do the weapons end up? In a cave in Afghanistan. This implies that the military’s not that good at inventory control; who knows where the Iron Man suits would end up? Besides, according to the Stark Expo website the various Stark subsidiaries were making most parts of the suit for civilian purposes anyway - search/rescue suits, wearable computer thingys, sound repulsor beams - which the DoD will probably buy and then mod out.

At any rate, here’s hoping Pepper becomes COO after she gives up the top position. She was just getting good at it, and I’m sick of movies where women only temporarily get power.

And at the very least, the movie did pass the Bechdel Test.