My one word review: Disappointment.
It wasn't a bad movie, not really. But after the excellence of the first Iron Man, I was expecting so much more. It did not liveup to it's potential.
They made Tony Stark into a petulent, obnoxious, sad man. And I know he was kinda like that in the first movie, but then when he became Iron Man, he changed. And Pepper did little more than whine, scream, and bitch at Tony. In the first movie, she was the perfect foil for him. And the normally great Sam Rockwell was wasted here. I mean, come on, he was too much of an envious doofus to be credible and Stark Industires only real competition, Justin Hammer. He was too much of an idiot to have founded, and run, a huge corporation like in the movie.
The writer's spent too much time coming up with witty one liners and not with actual conversations or bothering to plug the holes in the plot.
The best part of the whole thing was the supporting characters: the Black Widow and War Machine (neither ever officially named as such, but any comic book geek worth his copy of Giant Sized X-Men #1 knew who they were). They were the most interesting characters. And Black Widow frankly kicked ass. Both in her civilian identity (which was played as Pepper SHOULD have been played) and the costumed identity.
And yeah, if you go, there's a one minute clip after the credits. No big whoop. I saw it coming a mile away.
Overall, the movie's fine really. I just think they went for too much show, special effects and cutesty dialogue and left behind the human side of Iron Man, the witty repartee and the character development of the first one.
Still, I give it a very hestitant thumbs up. Don't let me discourage you from seeing it if already want to. but if you're not sure, save your money for another show and get this one on Netflix.
POLT
2 comments:
I didn't think the first one was all that and a bag of chips, so I'll definitely be passing on this one RDJr or not. Gwyneth cancels out the hotness factor.
Interesting. I guess I just don't have high expectations for comic book movies having great dialog or deep characterization. I do expect them not to make a complete cock up of those things -- both Hulk movies spring to mind -- but I just don't find your criticisms that compelling.
Sure, Stark was a sad character in this one -- he was DYING. He gave away his company because he knew he had very little time to live. That made sense to me.
Yeah, they didn't use Gwyneth Paltrow as well in this movie as they did in the first, and Scarlett Johansson kicked ass in all her character's incarnations.
I guess I do go to a comic book movie expecting a lot of action and special effects. I was a little afraid I was going to be disappointed in this movie for the same reason I hated Spider Man 3 -- where they just had too much going on and it just fell flat. But I didn't feel this way about IM2. I loved the action and the villains.
I am so thrilled that Sam Rockwell's career is finally picking up. He was so hot in Frost / Nixon and I really enjoyed him in this character. Yeah, sure, he was a cardboard character. Ummm, comic books, remember? :-)
I *LOVED* Mickey Rourke in this film!! I thought he was a great villain!
Anyway. I didn't like the first movie all that much, frankly. It was way too gun- and military-centric for my tastes. This film was more to my liking. I found the action and pacing pretty flawless. I didn't get bored once. I just loved it!!!
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