But this isn't Canada

[cyrano]

Herein please find my review for the new Iron Man movie.
Precis: Better than it really had any right to be.


I'm still just here for RDJr. If he's not your cup of tea, then you probably want to keep moving. He continues to be delightful, and his script writers obviously spent far too much time hanging out with him, because the things that come out of his mouth are lovely.

However, his back up band is also very good. We see very little of Gwyneth Paltrow this time around, which is unfortunate. Don Cheadle is very human, and I liked him a lot. Sam Rockwell is awesome (again) as the one bad guy who actually gets character development this time. (Hint to the writers: Russian prison tattoos are *not* character depth.) Gary Shandling brings his comic expertise along and makes what could have been a bit cameo something worth watching.

We get the Black Widow this time, and more of the trend of independent female characters who have something to do besides wait to be saved or turned into love interests. (Yes, there is kissing this time, but it didn't feel gratuitous and it didn't feel like a betrayal of what happened at the end of the first film.)

I spent most of the film going "Yay they opted against the idea of let's just make the bad guy a bigger stronger version of the hero, and at the end I was a little sad. But we still got Two Pals Fighting Crime, and the idea that Tony lets somebody in enough to play as a team.

Which brings me to backstory. I love backstory, especially when it makes sense and meshes with what we already know, informing our present with what came before. Yes, the dad thing was a little pat, but I liked it. I also really liked the plot line of "This technology you created and then didn't fully test is killing you" and the way, again, it plays into the way his character reacts to things.

Because I like *consequences*. And thus I loved the government-wants-Iron-Man plotline. For a summer blockbuster, things were played more or less intelligently, and the important part is that there was RDJr.


Coyote says: Four wags.

Comments

[princeofwands.livejournal.com]

I had two big gripes with this film.

1) if Tony's big problem is that his micro arc reactor is poisoning him from overuse, why not stop over-using it? Keep the one sitting in a cavity in his chest on light-duty of keeping the micro shrapnel from creeping into his heart, and use a separate one to power the suit, just like everyone else has to. Really.

2) I'd have loved for Hammer to have been a brilliant but unethical business man without being an insecure overcompensator. I'd have much rather had him be ruthless and business savvy but in over his head on the tech over-promising on what he could deliver -- all the while hating and being in competition with Tony without being so whiny. This could have been Darth Vader, but instead they gave us Dark Helmet.

But yeah. Still a fun movie.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

The arc reactor thing bugs me intensely for a variety of reasons, including but not restricted to the fact that it's placed in such a way that if it actually existed it would go straight through his esophagus/upper stomach and extend all the way back to his spine. This would make eating very difficult. But setting that aside, he's in a first world country now, couldn't he just have the schrapnel removed? Then he could get rid of the whole mini arc reactor thing for good.

As to your point, keep a light duty one on his person and build the stronger, more damaging reactor into the suit like he did on Rhodey's. Easy-peasy.

But I suppose it was more dramatic to have him work through his daddy issues to a certain extent and create Unobtanium or Starkium or whatever he decides to name his new element. Logical? No. Dramatic? Sure.

[amanda_lodden.livejournal.com]

You know, I had the same "wtf" reaction with the arc reactor-- in the first movie, when he first wakes up to find a thing in his chest, we're told that it's a strong electromagnet to pull the shrapnel away from his heart, and by the second movie I was thinking "if you can use an electromagnet to pull the shrapnel away, why can't you use an electromagnet to remove it entirely? Okay, maybe not while being held captive in a cave, but you're back home now, with all your money at your disposal."

I liked that he found a full solution to the problem, but I would have liked it more if the solution had turned out to be an alloy or something. To be honest, I didn't see the Daddy thing coming-- as soon as they revealed that Vanko had built his own suit + Tony was dying from his, I was *certain* that the solution would be something along the lines of "Vanko had fewer resources to work with at first and used something other than palladium to power his suit, thus handing Tony his ultimate solution." I'm generally pleased when a movie goes in an opposite direction from what I think it will, so the Unobtainium moment didn't bother me that much.

On the other hand, I thought the "message from his daddy at the end of the film reel" would have been much more touching if they hadn't drowned it out with the music. Seriously, guys, a little less volume on the crescendo, mmmkay?

Hammer would have been better if he hadn't been a Stark wannabe. I can live with whiny, but I hated derivative.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

You know, I had the same "wtf" reaction with the arc reactor-- in the first movie, when he first wakes up to find a thing in his chest, we're told that it's a strong electromagnet to pull the shrapnel away from his heart, and by the second movie I was thinking "if you can use an electromagnet to pull the shrapnel away, why can't you use an electromagnet to remove it entirely? Okay, maybe not while being held captive in a cave, but you're back home now, with all your money at your disposal."

Ok, well if we come up with a comic book answer to that question it would probably be, "It'll explode if they try to remove it" or something equally unlikely. What really puzzles me about it is that he acts like sometimes it's his replacement heart. I mean in the comic it actually *was* so that makes some sense, but is the schrapnel just moving that quickly that it could, within a few minutes, do damage to his heart? If not why does he say he's going into cardiac arrest when the generator's switched off for too long? Surely the schrapnel can't move that fast.

Sometimes I wish I could just switch my brain off and enjoy movies without higher mental functions as most viewing audiences seem to.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I didn't get that the poisoning was from over use, in which case, the whole Stark Expo thing seems a lot less "Doc Holliday deathbed showmanship" and more just plain dumb.

And yeah, I would love a complex bad guy, but I at least got a summer blockbuster bad guy who was less cardboard than usual. (Have you seen him in Moon?)

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

I thought the "Palladium poisoning" was kind of a sanitized metaphor for the drinking problem, but given that they're selling this to the kids as well it really worked. I have to say the daddy subplot didn't do much for me, though OMG was I the only one having serious "Venture Industries" and "Rusty/Dr. Venture" flashbacks? During the "City of the Future" bit I kept expecting to hear the theme music from Venture Brothers. Although I could've done without the constant "Here's the key, moron!" boots to the head.

I loved "Team Stark", and I kinda dug Tony going regressing a bit when he thought he was dying. The party bit just about killed me. And it was great that Nick Fury was the one to give him the bitch slap he needed to pull himself together.

Loved Natalie/Natasha fiercely for a variety of reasons. Her kick-assery was top-notch. I was a little sad that they cut out my favorite line from the trailer (the "You complete me!" bit) as it made me laugh every single time I saw it.

And we got RDJr in a wife beater doing engineery-sciency stuff and that always makes me very, deeply happy.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Oh god yes, I forgot to mention the whole 'rolling up his sleeves and building stuff' sequence. I love superheroes who are practical and do stuff. (:

And no, you were not the only one waiting for Jonas to speak forth from beyond the grave.