Iron Man 2 Review Thread (Spoilers)

[recS-12]

Iron Man 2 = 8 out of 10

[Banned User]

Loved the movie. Finale confrontation was rather short IMO. My only other gripe was how cliche the end was with the self detonating robots on a timer. Other then those minor gripes the movie was excellent.

[Phoenix Theory]

this is a little video i put together when boredom kicks in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00buX4Rd3P0

[Offender_Mullet]

Liked it, but once again the battle at the end with the main villain (Mickey Rourke was a bada** btw) was way too short.

[Holmes]

This was such a disappointing movie. Too busy, too short on character and plot development. Even the action and Downey Jr.'s performance (the most "reliable" elements) were just all right.

Very much a Casino Royale to Quantum of Solace-esque drop in quality.

[GreenScar]

Originally Posted by Holmes

This was such a disappointing movie. Too busy, too short on character and plot development. Even the action and Downey Jr.'s performance (the most "reliable" elements) were just all right.

Very much a Casino Royale to Quantum of Solace-esque drop in quality.

This:

Originally Posted by Diesel

Alright, here's Diesel's take on the movie.

I'm going to spoiler tag it for both details and length

[Show spoiler]It was 98% what I wanted it to be...and I had high expectations of the movie.

Let's start with the main man himself, Robert Downey Jr. Of course he was fantastic as Stark, the man IS Tony Stark, it's so natural for him. I thought he did even better this time around than he did in the first film, he definitely stepped it up a notch over an already great performance in Iron Man. From the highs of the Senate debacle, to the lows of him staring into the mirror at himself when his blood toxicity was getting really high; all around great. Zero problems with his performance.

Don Cheadle - There was one part about Cheadle's performance that left my head hanging in disappointment...the fact that I have to watch Terrance Howard in the role every time I re=watch Iron Man instead of him. Howard's Rhodey was...not cool. He was a lame character, he didn't act it that well (he wasn't terrible, but wasn't good either...he was passable), and I just generally didn't care for him. That all changed this time. Rhodey was a great character in the sequel. Anytime he wasn't on screen I was waiting for him to come back. Cheadle's interactions with Downey were great, MUCH better than Downey and Howard were together. This time they cast the role 100% on the money, I can't wait to see him in Avengers and Iron Man 3 regardless of the capacity of his role. Part of that 2% I didn't get was more screen time for Cheadle, I wish he had been around more. But when he was around he did great.

Mickey Rourke - No his character wasn't particularly deep...but he didn't need to be. His father helped create the greatest technology in existence and got no credit for it whatsoever....in fact he got kicked out of one country and screwed over by another. Now the son of the man who DID get credit for being a genius is world famous for utilizing Vanko's father's technology and passing it off as his own. Then to top it off his father died in his arms after a long slow death apparently. I've read a lot of people say his motivations were weak...they were VERY strong imo. As for Rourke's acting, he did what he needed to do superbly. And that was...be a bad***. He was an infinitely better villain than Obadiah. Like Cheadle, he was a fantastic addition to the cast that I would have liked to see a little bit more on screen.

Paltrow - First time around she wasn't that great. Mostly because I didn't really care for the character. She also did a decent job, but as most of her scenes where with Downey, she had the impossible task of trying to keep up. This time around, she managed it much better and did well...and didn't become a screaming little school girl in the end again thank God.

Favs - Happy kicked ***, 'nuff said.

Scarlet Johansson - She may not have been around as much as some would have wanted but I thought she was around the just shy of the perfect amount. She was only supposed to be a supporting character and that is exactly what she was. I thought she did well with her role as well. No there was no Russian accent like the purists probably wanted but I liked that she didn't have it, one bad*** Russian accent is enough If they plan for her to reappear later on in other films, I'm all for it and would love to see her return.

Sam Rockwell - He was annoying, a loser and lame....and I LOVED IT. Great job by him as well. Unlike Rhodey, Vanko and Widow, I thought he had the right amount of screen time for his role in the film. And he was utilized properly for that screen time.

Sam Jackson - I know he wasn't a star or anything and his role was just a glorified extended cameo again, but he is really good as Nick Fury so I felt he should at least be mentioned

Alright, now for the movie itself.

It was definitely better than the first film (Diesel's Iron Man score - 4.5/5).

The first had problems that could not be ignored....3rd act anyone? Obadiah screaming "I'M THE BAD GUY!!!!!" from the first time you meet him to even people who don't know his story. Dragging in parts early on.

This time around, none of those were an issue or even present imo.

The film never once drug on for me, and was always exciting or interesting to watch and pay attention to. Which is a great accomplishment as the entire 2nd act is mostly devoid of action (save the fight between Rhodey and Stark) and is almost completely character and dialog scenes. I've read some of the reviews and it holds this against the movie. A lack of action....yet if a movie has a lot of action they will complain about that too. Some people are never pleased. I thought the movie had the perfect amount of action to dialog scene ratio that it needed.

Speaking of the dialog...I love that the dialog in this movie (and in the first, but more so this time around) has them talking over each other so much. Because that's how it is in a real life conversation. People talk over each other and try to get a little louder than the other person and get their say in and not always 'ok you talk. My turn. Your turn'. And these movies capture that perfectly imo. Especially the scenes with Stark/Pepper.

The issue that plagued the villain of the first film is that they wanted you to be surprised by who it was...but they executed it VERY poorly. This time around, we meet the villain from the very first scene and know he's the bad guy. So it isn't an issue.

The 3rd act was a drastic improvement upon the first films. Much, much, much better. I would have liked the fight between War Machine/Iron Man and Vanko to last a little longer, say 30 seconds more? But it is just a small nitpick as the rest of the sequence with the drones was great imo, and a very fast paced fun ride.

Another complaint that I read was that they tried to shoehorn too much Avengers' plugging into the film. Not so I say. The movie did much more to set up Avengers than Iron Man or Incredible Hulk obviously, but the movie was very much about

So, the only things I would have liked to see the movie improved on are:
Tto maybe have another 10-15 minutes for more Rhodey (particularly Rhodey/Tony scenes), Widow and Whiplash. Besides that I wouldn't change a thing, as everything else worked (for me at least) and the perfected the imperfections that plagued the original. I said a while back I hoped and prayed that Iron Man 2 was to Iron Man as The Dark Knight was to Batman Begins (a greater sequel to an also great movie). And it is my opinion that it achieved that.

And to also the Monaco sequence. Someone explain to me how Happy pinned Vanko to the wall TWICE (once while moving pretty quick) without breaking his legs or killing him? He didn't have a suit on or anything, just pants. That part made me sit up and say...wait a second...

Not a deal breaker or anything, but just a simple head scratcher. And also, as a nitpick from a NASCAR fan...as soon as Vanko was out on that track, a yellow (or red) flag would have been thrown in any auto racing series to slow down/stop the other cars from coming around several more times, yet in the movie that didn't happen. It was probably to just be more dramatic, and I can understand that but when I saw it that's the first thing that came to my mind


...oh and let Stan Lee be in it for a few more seconds

On a technical note, the audio of the film was fantastic. Dare I say better than The Incredible Hulk?

....not better than Terminator Salvation though of course

The dynamics of it, the bass of the effects/explosions, the clearness of the dialog...

I can't wait to hear the blu-ray come September (when I think it'll be out).


To finish....

For the last two years my top two comic book films were The Dark Knight (1) and The Incredible Hulk (2). But now, and I can't believe it actually did it, but Iron Man 2 has unseated The Incredible Hulk as my #2 comic book film. Not by a vast margin or anything, but enough to be better.

I also liked it more than my favorite 2009 movie, Star Trek, by quite a bit.

Rating: 5/5

In case you don't want to read my whole long post (Microsoft Word says it's 1,487 words ) here's a summary:

[Show spoiler]

Attachment 18391

I respect any of you who have the patience to sit and read that whole thing

[seanducas]

i like the first one much better and wish i saw that one at the imax instead of this one. i gave it 4 stars probably because of the imax experience and might not have liked it as much at another theater.

[thedarkangel1975]

Robert Downey JR is the man. Awesome movie!

[SkillzthatKillz]

loved this movie, will pick it up day 1

[Darkhawk9587]

Originally Posted by SkillzthatKillz

loved this movie, will pick it up day 1

+1 I wonder when this will be out on blu. Hopefully no later than October. I cannot wait to get it and watch it again, this time with out any annoying people laughing at every little thing!

[Diesel]

Excuse me if I state the obvious: While this daily column is titled “Cool Stuff”, the stuff we feature doesn’t really fit the traditional or mainstream definition of “cool”. We feature items that might be of specific interest to tv and movie geeks, some of which could be enough to get you ridiculed by the actual “cool” people. But we’re film geeks, who really cares? Today’s item is one of those things I’d never personally buy as wearing this shirt in public outside of Comic-Con is likely to result in a lot of strange looks. But I thought it was geekarific enough to feature on the site.

The Iron Man 2 Comic Chest t-shirt is being sold exclusively on Play.com for $15 Euros or around $18.


Cool Stuff is a daily feature of slashfilm.com. Know of any geekarific creations or cool products which should be featured on Cool Stuff? E-Mail us at orfilms@gmail.com.

[Diesel]

I was looking over the box office numbers for Iron Man and Iron Man 2, and was bored so did some comparison:

Attachment 19538

Iron Man lost the first two weekends, but won the next 3 and will win this weekend.




Of Iron Man 2's 33 days in the theater, it lost to Iron Man 21 days.

Iron Man 2 was on top for: Day 1 - Day 9, 12, 13 and 20.

Here's the totals for the weeks:

Attachment 19539




The original broke $300M in 48 days...but took another 106 days to earn $18.3M.

IM2 currently has a $14.3M lead over Iron Man at this point in its run.

This week the movie will dip below 3,000 theaters, possibly below 2,500 depending on how large a drop it has.

For its 6th weekend, Iron Man was in roughly 100 theaters less than Iron Man 2 was for its 5th weekend and made $500K less than Iron Man 2 did for its 5th.


Looking at how things are going for the movie, I think it struggles to crack $335M.


Obviously still successful, but not as much so as a lot of people thought.


On the foreign front, it has already surpassed its predecessor and should hit $300M international by the end of the weekend.

[vegeta88]

Kind of strange that it wasn't much more successful than the first film. I think the mixed reviews worked against it. I remember the Blu release of Iron Man broke records (the number 500,000 comes to mind). I do not think it will break records this time but home video sales should be pretty good.

EDIT: Good research

[UK_fan_05]

Originally Posted by Diesel

I was looking over the box office numbers for Iron Man and Iron Man 2, and was bored so did some comparison:

Attachment 19538

Iron Man lost the first two weekends, but won the next 3 and will win this weekend.




Of Iron Man 2's 33 days in the theater, it lost to Iron Man 21 days.

Iron Man 2 was on top for: Day 1 - Day 9, 12, 13 and 20.

Here's the totals for the weeks:

Attachment 19539




The original broke $300M in 48 days...but took another 106 days to earn $18.3M.

IM2 currently has a $14.3M lead over Iron Man at this point in its run.

This week the movie will dip below 3,000 theaters, possibly below 2,500 depending on how large a drop it has.

For its 6th weekend, Iron Man was in roughly 100 theaters less than Iron Man 2 was for its 5th weekend and made $500K less than Iron Man 2 did for its 5th.


Looking at how things are going for the movie, I think it struggles to crack $335M.


Obviously still successful, but not as much so as a lot of people thought.


On the foreign front, it has already surpassed its predecessor and should hit $300M international by the end of the weekend.

Okay, let's try this again

Good comparisons.

IM 1 grossed $318,412,101 Domestic and $585,174,222 Worldwide. IM2 has so far grossed $293,059,560 Domestic and $581,259,560 Worldwide. Safe to say it will surpass it.

I think the reason it is below the first one's numbers later in it's theater run is because more people went to see it opening day than the first one and some top films have opened less then 3 weeks after IM1 and 2 hit theaters (Indiana Jones opened 3 weeks after IM and Shrek 4 opened 2 weeks after IM2.)

[Darkhawk9587]

How bored were you Diesel to want to compare the two films' box office records?

Regardless, good research. Very insightful, especially seeing as Iron Man 2 will definitely gross more than the original, yet not come close to what some thought (aka challenge TDK's record).

[Gabriel360]

Originally Posted by vegeta88

Kind of strange that it wasn't much more successful than the first film. I think the mixed reviews worked against it. I remember the Blu release of Iron Man broke records (the number 500,000 comes to mind). I do not think it will break records this time but home video sales should be pretty good.

EDIT: Good research

I agree. Great research. Very interesting.

Also, I do think IM2 will break sales records on home video. More blu-ray players are in homes now which means there is a potentially greater audience to sell to. It won't do Avatar numbers, but it'll break the sales numbers of the first movie for sure.

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by Darkhawk9587

How bored were you Diesel to want to compare the two films' box office records?

Regardless, good research. Very insightful, especially seeing as Iron Man 2 will definitely gross more than the original, yet not come close to what some thought (aka challenge TDK's record).

Very bored

I was at that point where I was just too tired to watch a movie but not quite tired enough to go to sleep

At least more than 1 person read it



I think it'll definitely do very well on blu-ray, maybe double what the original did (that would mean 1M first week).

Might make it to top 5 first week sales (I don't know what is #4 and #5, just that Avatar, TDK and Revenge of the Fallen are 1-3).

[Darkhawk9587]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Very bored

I was at that point where I was just too tired to watch a movie but not quite tired enough to go to sleep

At least more than 1 person read it



I think it'll definitely do very well on blu-ray, maybe double what the original did (that would mean 1M first week).

Might make it to top 5 first week sales (I don't know what is #4 and #5, just that Avatar, TDK and Revenge of the Fallen are 1-3).

Hahaha. Very understandable. I've had times like that. And I concur, I think it could easily sell 1M blus in the first week.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Very bored

I was at that point where I was just too tired to watch a movie but not quite tired enough to go to sleep

At least more than 1 person read it



I think it'll definitely do very well on blu-ray, maybe double what the original did (that would mean 1M first week).

Might make it to top 5 first week sales (I don't know what is #4 and #5, just that Avatar, TDK and Revenge of the Fallen are 1-3).

I'm thinking it'll beat Revenge of the Fallen

[alex09]

nice pic but i have already remove this pic from my face book wall
but thanx again to review