*** Official IRON MAN 2 Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Chuck Mayer]

I meant the cave break thing as a compliment to that scene. It is an action scene about the character. Terminator 2...those are ALL of the action scenes, since Cameron does that better than almost everyone. As you point out. IM2 doesn't really have those. It is action for action, which most movies do.


A chase scene is different to me. I apply different criteria to a chase scene. But fine, consider the jet scene as an action scene. You are conflating points. Even with my a,b, and c, I still believe my 1-8).


My brilliant analysis shows that a particular segment of the Expo sequence is better than the action scenes in 1.

 

[Brent M]

Originally Posted by Zack Gibbs

• I defy anyone to make a decent argument as to how any of those sequences were better than the Cave Break-out or the Fighter Jet sequences from the first film.

Both of those scenes you mention are great, but the final big battle in IM2 tops them by far IMHO.

 

[nolesrule]

Just piping in to say that I enjoyed Iron Man 2. It felt like a logical continuation of the first film, and it was fun to watch. To me it wasn't about comparing the films as to which one had more action, but rather continuing the story of Tony Stark and the suit.

 

[Don Solosan]

"Both of those scenes you mention are great, but the final big battle in IM2 tops them by far IMHO."


Where the final battle in IM2 falls short, for me, is emotional involvement. Escaping from the cave, the fight in Golmera (Yinsen's home), and the subsequent fighter chase were awesome because I liked the characters and what they were doing. The action in IM2 was good, but I wasn't as involved by it.

 

[Steve Christou]

What impressed me was that it took Iron Man and War Machine to take down Whiplash, a third tier villain. How will Iron Man cope when a planet-threatening foe appears, or doesn't that happen much in his comic book series?

 

[Greg_S_H]

Originally Posted by darklight
well I might get flamed for this but I really enjoyed the film. thought it was very entertaining. although didnt think too much to Scarlett's acting bit other than excellent! Soundtrack was really good as well.

Even if no one agreed with you, you wouldn't (or shouldn't) get flamed for your opinion around these parts. What I find interesting is that the prerelease reviews were pretty scathing, but there's a lot of positivity around here, and people I encounter on other forums and in real life loved it. I don't know what was going on, but the early reviews don't seem to match the public's perception. I might try to watch the first one again and then go back to the theater a second time.

 

[Ken Chan]

Originally Posted by Steve Christou

What impressed me was that it took Iron Man and War Machine to take down Whiplash, a third tier villain. How will Iron Man cope when a planet-threatening foe appears, or doesn't that happen much in his comic book series?

That's not impressive; that's more evidence that the movie was poorly written. (Unless your impression was: "Wow, this movie is poorly written!")


Iron Man doesn't deal with planet-killers much, but that's probably also true of most titles, really. Most villains run into heroes at the nascent stage of world domination. The exceptions might be with The Fantastic Four and Superman; maybe X-Men.

 

[jplepage]

Mickey Rourke make a better villain than the one Jeff played in the first movie (which wasn`t bad at all).

 

[Don Solosan]

"Mickey Rourke make a better villain than the one Jeff played in the first movie (which wasn`t bad at all)."


I just rewatched it, and you don't find out that Stane is the ultimate villain until 70 minutes into the movie!

 

[oscar_merkx]

http://www.superherohype.com/news/articles/101346-what-is-terrence-howard-talking-to-marvel-about

Terrence Howard, who was replaced by Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2, dropped an interesting hint to E! Online in a new interview.... "For me to have recommended him, it means all the more so that I helped someone get to where they are supposed to go," the Crash star continued. "Marvel and I are now talking about doing some other things. And Don Cheadle wanted to play that part before I wanted to play it, so everything is very well."

Now this is interesting

 

[Steve Christou]

Why was that interesting Oscar? [cue Oscar shrugging]


And I thought Jeff Bridges was the better villain because "you don't find out that Stane is the ultimate villain until 70 minutes into the movie!"


Whiplash was a one-note villain, a pissed off Russkie with electric whips. I can't even remember if he survived at the end

 

[Ken Chan]

Originally Posted by jplepage /forum/thread/300193/official-iron-man-2-discussion-thread/90#post_3692025

 

[Brent M]

I thought Rourke was pretty good as Whiplash, but I definitely enjoyed Bridges' performance in the first film more.

 

[Brent M]

Originally Posted by Inspector Hammer!
I've saved the best for last, though...Scarlett!
I almost couldn't handle her in this film, she was off-the-scales HOT and she had me and every other red-blooded male in the audience gasping and squirming in our seats, hell at one point I was tempted to pour my large soda over my head lol.

No argument there. She is absolutely magnificent!

 

Originally Posted by Brent M

Both of those scenes you mention are great, but the final big battle in IM2 tops them by far IMHO.

Personally, I did not much care for the final battle, it was as if Favreau was trying to imitate Michael Bay. It was too dark, there was no sense of danger to anyone or anything. Plus, the final faceoff against Whiplash was so short, it was almost silly. But to each their own I of course.

 

[Edwin-S]

Well, I finally went to see this last night. I don't know if it's me, the projection quality or the technology used to produce film prints, but I cannot believe how blurry and undefined a lot of scenes in this film were. I mean, close-ups all seemed to be in focus and definition seemed good, but wide and medium shots were just blurry and undefined. You couldn't make out writing on screens and you could make out that buildings in the background, during flying sequences, had windows and not much else. These films are beginning to look so blurry that I'm beginning to think it isn't even worth watching them in the theatre anymore. I might as well wait for the Blu-ray, because they actually seem to look better than the theatrical runs.


I thought the fim was okay; although, for the first 40 minutes or so it was touch and go. During the first 40 minutes I was left hoping that they had plenty more AC/DC tunes to play, because the AC/DC tune near the start was the only thing making the film bearable. The film did pick it up, but I don't think it was quite as good as the first one. I was expecting a lot more from the Whiplash character. In the trailers, he looked like he was going to be one tough badass. In the film, he seemed to get his ass kicked pretty fast, especially in the Monaco fight. That fight left me thinking, "that's all he had?". A few electric bolts and then Stark pulls the guy's battery wit hardly any effort at all.


Then he shows up at the end and gets his ass kicked so fast that it barely even registers as a fight. Bridges played a suit in the first one and his character still put up a better fight than Rourke's Whiplash. Also, it would be nice if filmmakers would actually keep the camera still enough to see what the hell is going on. The fights and action scenes just seemed incoherent. You could hardly tell where anyone was in relation to each other.

 

[Greg_S_H]

While I don't agree with your assessment of the film, I saw it on the biggest screen in Texas (if that claim is still true) a couple of days after it opened and I thought it looked blurry as hell, too. I figure that close to release, it can't have been a worn print.

 

[RobertR]

Originally Posted by Edwin-S

Well, I finally went to see this last night. I don't know if it's me, the projection quality or the technology used to produce film prints, but I cannot believe how blurry and undefined a lot of scenes in this film were. I mean, close-ups all seemed to be in focus and definition seemed good, but wide and medium shots were just blurry and undefined. You couldn't make out writing on screens and you could make out that buildings in the background, during flying sequences, had windows and not much else. These films are beginning to look so blurry that I'm beginning to think it isn't even worth watching them in the theatre anymore. I might as well wait for the Blu-ray, because they actually seem to look better than the theatrical runs.


I thought the fim was okay; although, for the first 40 minutes or so it was touch and go. During the first 40 minutes I was left hoping that they had plenty more AC/DC tunes to play, because the AC/DC tune near the start was the only thing making the film bearable. The film did pick it up, but I don't think it was quite as good as the first one. I was expecting a lot more from the Whiplash character. In the trailers, he looked like he was going to be one tough badass. In the film, he seemed to get his ass kicked pretty fast, especially in the Monaco fight. That fight left me thinking, "that's all he had?". A few electric bolts and then Stark pulls the guy's battery wit hardly any effort at all.


Then he shows up at the end and gets his ass kicked so fast that it barely even registers as a fight. Bridges played a suit in the first one and his character still put up a better fight than Rourke's Whiplash. Also, it would be nice if filmmakers would actually keep the camera still enough to see what the hell is going on. The fights and action scenes just seemed incoherent. You could hardly tell where anyone was in relation to each other.

I was thinking many of the same things you were. I wasn't impressed at all with the photography. I kept thinking "hey, my system looks better than this. Why should I bother with the theater?". I feel as if there's something missing with today's digital techniques. I miss genuine FILM.


I thought the film wasn't nearly as good as the first one. The use of the suit in the party scenes cheapened the effect, making it look plastic (which it probably was). The rival billionaire degenerated into a silly parody, and the main villain turned out not to be that much of a challenge. I did like the sequence involving the model and the new element, which captured the feeling of brilliant innovation that made the first film so good.

 

[Ockeghem]

This Friday, I'm taking the family to the cinema (matinee). Ironman 2 and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time are playing (as well as a couple of other films). My wife and I are giving our kids the choice of what they want to see, as some want to see Ironman 2 and others want to see Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I'm not sure which film I will be attending, but it should be a fun time.


I've been reading the reviews in this thread and the other to determine which film I ought to see.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Road to Endgame Revisit #4:
Of all the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I think Iron Man 2 is the one where I diverge the most from the general consensus. Even twenty-something movies later, it remains one of my personal favorites.

It was always going to be a bit of a shaggy dog, because Marvel Studios had tasked it with doing a lot of the heavy lifting to set up The Avengers. SHIELD plays a bigger role than the last time around, Black Widow is introduced, and -- for people who didn't stick around for the post-credits sequence at the end of Iron Man -- Nick Fury is introduced. You've got two major villains, arguably four protagonists, you're dealing with the fallout from the first movie's stunner of an ending, and you're building toward the next big thing that will bring the various standalone franchises together.

So I can see why people think it's an unwieldy mess. But one of the ways that director Jon Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux (yes, that Justin Theroux) manage all of the balls they're juggling is to basically streamline the movie into two dueling storylines that touch briefly in Monaco near the beginning and then collide against each other in fiery fashion at the end: On one side, you've Tony's story, which is populated by Pepper and Rhodey and Natasha, and on the other side, you've got Ivan Vanko's story, which is populated by Justin Hammer. Those through lines, for me, keep the movie on track.

One the interesting things about watching the various MCU entries so close together is you do start to really notice the connections that are weaved between them all. In the series premiere of "Agent Carter", Peggy Carter and Edwin Jarvis are trying to figure out who could manufacture Nitramene, a dangerous substance with science fiction properties. They consult Anton Vanko at Stark Industries for his scientific and engineering expertise. And then here, we see that Howard Stark and Anton Vanko had a falling out several years later, leading Anton's son Ivan on a vendetta against Howard's son in this movie.

The original Iron Man had a bit of a flying by the seat of their pants quality to it, which is part of that movie's pleasures. But this time around, everybody had made an Iron Man movie before and things are a lot more polished. I love Matthew Libatique's cinematography for this movie; the shot compositions always feel exactly right, and the lighting is warm and naturalistic and beautiful to look at. It was shot before Marvel Studios had standardized its workflow, was one of four MCU films shot on film, and the result is a visual style that is exactly right for this picture and stands out from the crowd. I could watch this movie on mute and still be engaged just by soaking it in visually.

Another thing I love about this movie is that it's really the only time (thus far) that we've gotten to see Natasha Romanoff utilizing her primary skill set as a covert agent, infiltrating an organization and gathering intelligence. In subsequent movies, we get to learn more about Natasha the human being, but I like that she's a no nonsense professional here. The sequence during the film's climax where she fights her way into the Hammer Industries facility in Queens a triumph of design and choreography. I love how the hallways are monochrome, so that the only color in the shots is her auburn red hair. I thought they nailed the look of Black Widow here, any every subsequent iteration has been a step down, visually. Part of that is that Scarlett Johansson was 24 when she shot this movie, and hadn't yet put her body through pregnancy and child birth. But a bigger part of it is that the costume design and cinematography in subsequent appearances didn't do as much to make the character stand out.

Villains are traditionally one of the areas where Marvel movies fall short, but Ivan Vanko and Justin Hammer both work for me here. They have dualities with Tony Stark in different ways, and more interesting ways that the dualities between Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane in the first film. Justin Hammer is a caricature of Tony Stark; he desperately wants to be Tony Stark, but continually falls short. He's a buffoon, and Sam Rockwell is great at playing the buffoonery, but he also gives him just enough of an edge that you can take him seriously as a threat. On the other hand, the duality between Tony and Ivan mirrors the fractured relationship between Howard and Anton. As polished and well groomed as Tony and Justin Hammer are, Ivan is just pure masculinity. He's overtly threatening in a way that Justin Hammer could never be. His goals are remarkably straight forward, and it's only because of Justin Hammer's shortsighted interference that Tony doesn't recognize the threat sooner.

I love the use of the Stark Expo as the MCU's version of a world's fair. I love the way that the world's fair that Howard launched when Tony was a young child draws up the imagery of and nostalgia for the 1964-65 New York World's Fair, and how the world's fair that Tony launches in this film imagines what they would look like in a contemporary environment. I love the ties between past and present, and the way all of these analog artifacts from decades ago tie into cutting edge science using the futuristic technology in Tony's basement. I love how John Slattery's take on middle-aged Howard Stark finds a middle ground between Howard Hughes and Walt Disney. Even the use of the earlier expo's layout as a diagram of an atom for a proposed new element, while scientifically ludicrous, was really effective at visually conveying an important bit of exposition.

If you want to learn a lot about the actual production of this movie, I wouldn't recommend Jon Favreau's audio commentary. He spends a lot of time summarizing what's happening on the screen, and giving shout outs to his collaborators. The one thing he does do well is explain the motivations behind the various scenes: why they're in the movie, what they were trying to accomplish, and why they're edited the way they are.