AntMan3001
Iron Man 2 Review!
The next stop in my “Road to Infinity War” watchathon is the sequel to the film that started it all, Iron Man 2. Now the first Iron Man jump started my interests into Marvel Comics, but Iron Man 2 was the film blew me away with the fact that Marvel was going to make these movies interconnected, I skipped the end credits scene in the first Iron Man because I didn’t even know it had one, but I still remember when I saw that end credits scene with Thor’s hammer and it blew my MIND. After Iron Man 2, I really got into movie news and finding out everything I could possibly know about the upcoming Marvel movies! Though that end credits scene is the only thing I remember getting excited about, I don’t remember how I felt about the movie as a whole. Iron Man 2 is one of the most disliked of the MCU films, so let’s see if this revisiting of the film has soured the hype that I had for it the first time I watched it. Let’s check it out!
Good: Like how I started my first Iron Man review, I gotta start with Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. This film would not nearly be as good as I found it without him, his characters is just so well written and so well acted that it makes you forget about the various flaws this movie carries with it. In this film we get a continued progression of the Tony Stark that I feel like we lost after the first Avengers, where he’s still a playboy, he’s still cocky, yet this time he’s Iron Man and the world knows it, which is all for his benefit, kinda. We’re introduced to a plotline that the arc reactor is poisoning his blood and if he doesn’t find a suitable replacement, he could die. This plotline brings a new challenge to Robert Downey Jr. and it was one of my favorite subplots of the film. It lead to great scenes like Tony fighting Rhodey at his birthday party. That scene is awesome and speaking of Rhodey, Don Cheadle was such a great replacement from Terrence Howard as War Machine in this film! All the scenes with Iron Man and War Machine together are awesome. My favorite action scene in the movie is when Iron Man and War Machine take on those drones in that indoor garden at the end of the movie. The action is really well shot and I was very surprised how good sure the visual effects are in this film. Iron Man’s suit has slowly downgraded in terms of quality over the years, I remember there’s one shot of Tony wearing the suit in Civil War that looks pretty bad, but in this movie everything looks very realistic. I also think the Iron Man suit in this movie is my favorite one in the MCU, I’m a fan of the triangle arc reactor! Finally, I’d like to give Sam Rockwell some love, I thought he was a pretty decent villain. Rockwell plays Justin Hammer who in this film is such a loser of a character so well and even when Hammer thinks he’s on time, he still acts like a complete loser which lead to some great comedy.
Bad: Now when people say that Marvel has a villain problem, they are 100% valid because the villain in this movie sucks. Unlike villains like Malekith from Thor: the Dark World, this character is not one dimensional, but he’s just so poorly written and acted by Mickey Rourke, I feel like he doesn’t even belong in this movie! It just so bad and then at the end of the film, he’s just another big grey bad guy that Iron Man and War Machine deal with pretty easily. Now the villain is my biggest complaint of the film, but Iron Man 2 deals with a very common problem with other films that try to jump start a cinematic universe, which is cramming too many storylines into one film. We have the Tony dying storyline, we have the War Machine storyline, we have the Whiplash storyline, and we have the Avengers Initiative storyline. Now I think the Black Widow and Avengers stuff could’ve been completely removed and had the other storylines expanded upon because it everything Avenger-related that’s covered in this movie is kinda retreaded in the Avengers. Now I’m a big fan of Black Widow in the MCU, but I don’t think she was very well handled in this movie. Although I like the interactions between Tony and Black Widow, after watching Natasha and her character progression in the following MCU films, her character just feels so off.
Overall, I believe Iron Man 2 is not as bad as people say it is. Despite its huge flaws in the villain and the amount of story that it tries to cram into one two hour flick, it’s still at the end of the day a story about the Tony Stark that we grew to know and love in his first outing with an expanded world and some incredible action. I understand why people would like this movie a lot less than I did, but I think Jon Favreau directed the hell out of a pretty poor script, which is why I’m going to give Iron Man 2 props, but I won’t remember it as one of the greats of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For these reasons, I’m going to give Iron Man 2 a 7.25/10. Let me know what your thoughts on Iron Man 2 are in the comments below and stay tuned for my review of Thor next week!
Iron Man 2 Review!
The next stop in my “Road to Infinity War” watchathon is the sequel to the film that started it all, Iron Man 2. Now the first Iron Man jump started my interests into Marvel Comics, but Iron Man 2 was the film blew me away with the fact that Marvel was going to make these movies interconnected, I skipped the end credits scene in the first Iron Man because I didn’t even know it had one, but I still remember when I saw that end credits scene with Thor’s hammer and it blew my MIND. After Iron Man 2, I really got into movie news and finding out everything I could possibly know about the upcoming Marvel movies! Though that end credits scene is the only thing I remember getting excited about, I don’t remember how I felt about the movie as a whole. Iron Man 2 is one of the most disliked of the MCU films, so let’s see if this revisiting of the film has soured the hype that I had for it the first time I watched it. Let’s check it out!
Good: Like how I started my first Iron Man review, I gotta start with Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. This film would not nearly be as good as I found it without him, his characters is just so well written and so well acted that it makes you forget about the various flaws this movie carries with it. In this film we get a continued progression of the Tony Stark that I feel like we lost after the first Avengers, where he’s still a playboy, he’s still cocky, yet this time he’s Iron Man and the world knows it, which is all for his benefit, kinda. We’re introduced to a plotline that the arc reactor is poisoning his blood and if he doesn’t find a suitable replacement, he could die. This plotline brings a new challenge to Robert Downey Jr. and it was one of my favorite subplots of the film. It lead to great scenes like Tony fighting Rhodey at his birthday party. That scene is awesome and speaking of Rhodey, Don Cheadle was such a great replacement from Terrence Howard as War Machine in this film! All the scenes with Iron Man and War Machine together are awesome. My favorite action scene in the movie is when Iron Man and War Machine take on those drones in that indoor garden at the end of the movie. The action is really well shot and I was very surprised how good sure the visual effects are in this film. Iron Man’s suit has slowly downgraded in terms of quality over the years, I remember there’s one shot of Tony wearing the suit in Civil War that looks pretty bad, but in this movie everything looks very realistic. I also think the Iron Man suit in this movie is my favorite one in the MCU, I’m a fan of the triangle arc reactor! Finally, I’d like to give Sam Rockwell some love, I thought he was a pretty decent villain. Rockwell plays Justin Hammer who in this film is such a loser of a character so well and even when Hammer thinks he’s on time, he still acts like a complete loser which lead to some great comedy.
Bad: Now when people say that Marvel has a villain problem, they are 100% valid because the villain in this movie sucks. Unlike villains like Malekith from Thor: the Dark World, this character is not one dimensional, but he’s just so poorly written and acted by Mickey Rourke, I feel like he doesn’t even belong in this movie! It just so bad and then at the end of the film, he’s just another big grey bad guy that Iron Man and War Machine deal with pretty easily. Now the villain is my biggest complaint of the film, but Iron Man 2 deals with a very common problem with other films that try to jump start a cinematic universe, which is cramming too many storylines into one film. We have the Tony dying storyline, we have the War Machine storyline, we have the Whiplash storyline, and we have the Avengers Initiative storyline. Now I think the Black Widow and Avengers stuff could’ve been completely removed and had the other storylines expanded upon because it everything Avenger-related that’s covered in this movie is kinda retreaded in the Avengers. Now I’m a big fan of Black Widow in the MCU, but I don’t think she was very well handled in this movie. Although I like the interactions between Tony and Black Widow, after watching Natasha and her character progression in the following MCU films, her character just feels so off.
Overall, I believe Iron Man 2 is not as bad as people say it is. Despite its huge flaws in the villain and the amount of story that it tries to cram into one two hour flick, it’s still at the end of the day a story about the Tony Stark that we grew to know and love in his first outing with an expanded world and some incredible action. I understand why people would like this movie a lot less than I did, but I think Jon Favreau directed the hell out of a pretty poor script, which is why I’m going to give Iron Man 2 props, but I won’t remember it as one of the greats of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For these reasons, I’m going to give Iron Man 2 a 7.25/10. Let me know what your thoughts on Iron Man 2 are in the comments below and stay tuned for my review of Thor next week!