Iron Man 2 - Roundtable Review *Spoilers*

As you all aware of by now, Iron Man 2 opened internationally a week before the United States. This gave Ryan the opportunity to review the movie already, but The Weekly Crisis other two international agents also went to see the movie as well. Since the first review was pretty much spoiler free, we decided to also have a round table between Christine and me, so we could chat about the film, without having to worry about ruining anyone's movie going experience. So if you don't want to know all the details, do not hit the jump, do not read further ahead, do not pass go, and do not collect $200. Otherwise, click the link to see our roundtable review of Iron Man 2.

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man

Christine: Robert Downey Junior is Tony Stark. He really carries the movie to a great extent and pulls off the role of the lovable, brilliant bastard so well. He was born to play this part.

Matt: I'll raise you one, not only is he Tony Stark, he is the embodiment of the Iron Man films. While in the first one, he played the rich lovable bastard well enough, when he got inside the Iron Man suit, there was an uncertainty in his part. Understandable, as he had just built this thing, but in this second one he is incredibly confident, the armor is literally like a second skin.

Christine: His confidence (over-confidence, really) is an important theme in the movie. As someone who loves the spotlight, being an "out" superhero is something he seems to really enjoy, while at the same time having these serious health issues he needs to take his mind off of.

Matt: The drunk Tony scene was hilarious. Yeah, he is basically driving a tank while under the influence, but he manages to pull it off incredibly. Anyone else, you would be frowning upon them, but I was laughing out loud.

Christine: He should have gotten a DUI for that. He's a very believable playboy though. As a woman, I have to say it's easy to understand why the ladies can't resist him. He knows he kicks ass.

Matt: And speaking of kicking ass, let's talk about the guy that kicked his ass early in the movie...

Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko/Whiplash

Christine: I saw The Wrestler about a year ago, and Mickey Rourke - in the superficial sense at least - repeats his performance from that movie. Don't get me wrong, they're widely different characters in most ways, but there are many similarities. Ivan is obviously a genius, but he's also something of a loser, and the scruffy look is the exact same.

Matt: I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of Ivan as a poor loser. It seems that many of Iron Man's villains are basically rich dudes jealous of Tony Stark, who can build all those armors because of the obscene amount of money they have. Here we have Vanko who is just as smart and resourceful as Tony Stark, but without his millions

Christine: You know, an insane amount of cash is the only thing keeping me from building my own space station. In all seriousness though, I really dug the character and the way he combines insanity with playing it cool.

Matt: The scene in the prison was really good, but it reminded me a lot of the Batman/Joker scene in The Dark Knight. I wonder if that was a conscious choice or just a coincidence?

Christine: Hm, I didn't think about that. Speaking of cool scenes, I think they did a good job of showing how this new technology drains (so to speak) the Iron Man suit of its power. I mean the way Ivan and Tony first face off in Monaco. The vulnerability of the Iron Man suit felt really believable.

Matt: I'm not exactly sure how the Whiplash armor worked, because when it hit things like the cars in the Monaco scene, it cut them like butter, but then when it was hitting the armors, while it did damage, it was nowhere near as bad as the cars. I guess we can chalk it up to COMIC BOOK SCIENCE!

Christine: So true... On the other hand, most cars are made to be easily deformed. It makes them safer. And another thing about Whiplash, while we're on the subject, I loved how his overalls literally burned off his body. Is it realistic? No. Is it badass? Oh, yes.

Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/War Machine

Christine: You want to know a weird connection between me and Don Cheadle? I've actually had the pleasure of having dinner with Paul Rusesabagina, the real life hero depicted in the movie Hotel Rwanda, who was portrayed by Cheadle.

Matt: Wow, that is actually kind of cool... but did he have weapons mounted on his shoulders? DIDN'T THINK SO!

Christine: No, he did not. Which actually makes him much more heroic

Matt: Anyway, I actually liked Terrance Howard in the first movie, Don Cheadle is a great actor, but I wasn't sold on this performance.

Christine: I don't think he was right for the part so I totally agree with you. I wish Howard could have repeated his performance from the first movie. He feels more action AND more "army".

Matt: I felt that while Cheadle played off with Robert Downey Jr. really well, but in the scenes that he has to be in the War Machine armor, it just feels weird. He does not have a big body like Howard, so he looks strange.

Christine: Exactly, his face almost looks too small inside the armor.

Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanova/Black Widow

Christine: I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I don't feel that Scarlett Johansson was right for this role, due mostly to her age. Tony Stark, as portrayed by Robert Downey Junior, is clearly supposed to be in his 40s. I would have preferred Natasha to be played by an actress in the 35-40 age range. This would have been more consistent with how she's portrayed in the comic, even with her aging process being delayed. This isn't Johansson's fault, and I think she does a good job with (what little) material she's given, but there are lots of smoking hot women in Hollywood who can handle a physical role, but have another decade under their belt to sell the character as properly experienced.

Matt: That's a pretty good point. I actually think she did a great job with what she was given, and I liked the parts where she was undercover more than when she was in suit. But about the casting, I have always been a proponent that they should have gotten Milla Jovovich to play the part of Black Widow. She can do action roles, she is sexy, she kicks ass, and she is actually of Russian descent. That's all major fields covered right there! Who knows, maybe they can get her to play the other Black Widow (Yelena Belova, the blond one)?

Christine: That actually brings up another thing that I kind of missed. While I hate fake foreign accents in movies, it wouldn't have hurt if they'd given her just a hint of a Russian accent. I know she's portrayed as being able to speak English very well in the comic (unlike Yelena), but just a hint would have been nice. There was very little sense of her being foreign at all.

Matt: A good way of working the fact that she is Russian into the movie would have been to interact with Ivan in some way, who is also of Russian descent. Maybe when she ran into his computer, it was all in Russian?

Christine: That would have been a great way to handle it.

Matt: Something that bothered me was that after that scene, where they break into Hammer industries, is that she kind of disappears. I don't think we see or hear from her after that, do we?

Christine: Right. There were so many things going on in this movie that they might have dropped the ball a little there. I did like how relatively complex the plot was though.

Matt: They should have just put a sign "To see more of Black Widow, wait until 2013 when her movie comes out!". Also, I wanted to mention it somewhere, but I think she was in the first scene, the one where Tony is walking into the crowd and a bunch of people want to see him, get his autograph, etc. I'm pretty sure she is the one that hands him something (a piece of paper?) but the scene was so fast that I would have to see it again to be sure.

Christine: I guess we're just going to have to wait for the DVD to take a closer look at that scene! I have the first movie on DVD, and will definitely get this one too.

Gwyneth Paltrow as Virginia "Pepper" Potts

Matt: I actually don't have a lot to say about Gwyneth Paltrow. She's there, she plays her part, the scenes with Tony had a lot of chemistry (particularly when they are arguing with each other), but she didn't wow me.

Christine: I can't say I have that much to say either, but I do quite like Gwyneth Paltrow, without necessarily being a huge fan, so she was totally fine by me. I suspect she's the kind of actress that women like more than men do, a little like Julia Roberts,

Matt: I also wanted to mention that I can't really picture her in Pepper's current role in the comic, where she dons the Rescue armor.

Christine: On the other hand, giving Pepper her own armor made me lose interest in reading Invincible Iron Man.

Matt: Now that I think about it, I think that was undone recently.

Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer

Matt: Rockwell did the role of "also-ran" pretty well, but I felt at times that the character was TOO pathetic, and we are never shown how smart he actually is, he gets played by everyone around him. I guess that was kind of the point, but it looks like he is going to be the villain of the third movie (if it gets made), so I don't know if I am going to be able to see him as a credible threat.

Christine: Sam Rockwell did a good job in this movie. I like being treated as an intelligent viewer when watching a movie and crazy Silver Age type villains aren't going to fly anymore. I'm not sure I agree that he was too pathetic, and I would imagine future takes on the character would see him evolve, have him come back smarter from having learned his lesson the hard way.

Matt: That's a very good point. I think my main beef with the character (not the portrayal) was the scene in the Senate, where he was shown working with North Korea, and not only was his technology completely nonfunctional, but on top of that he gets exposed as a traitor in national TV. I just don't see anyone making a comeback from that kind of PR nightmare.

Christine: You're absolutely right. The fact that he wasn't arrested on the spot for treason was definitely a weakness in the plot. In fact, I think they should have skipped that part completely. It would have suited the movie better to have his goals be all about ego.

Matt: I just hope that if he does come back for the third movie, he is not going to be another villain in a big armor suit. I think this movie provided more than enough on that front.

Armor Wars

Matt: There were plenty of fight scenes in the movie, and every one of them had a different feel to it, different dynamics and different participants. It's hard to top Iron Man and War Machine punching each other at the tune of Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust".

Christine: Here's what I liked about this movie: The fight scenes never got in the way of the plot or the character work. I like action, but I have a real hard time with action that has no purpose and just takes up screen time (*cough* Transformers 2 *cough*). This, to me, translates well to comic books too. I'd take something semi-deep with strategically placed action scenes over large scale events any day. I'm not suggesting that Iron Man 2 is a deep movie, by any means, but it's not exactly a mindless action flick either. The scene I particularly enjoyed was the one where Iron Man and War Machine fought together, toward the end. I thought it was nicely choreographed.

Matt: Oh yeah, and they even managed throw in some humor, when they are arguing about who is the one with most weapons.

Christine: So true, and the humor in this movie - while we're on the subject - was really at the right level. There was nothing too cheesy, but definitely good for a few chuckles. It's very Jon Favreau, and very Robert Downey Junior.

Matt: Did you know that Jon Favreau was the one playing Happy Hogan? I had no idea what he looked like, so I found about it later.

Extremis

Matt: Much like Robert Downey Jr. after seeing Scarlett Johansson for the first time, I too leaned over and told my wife (who saw the movie with me) "I want one", but it was when I saw Tony Stark's immersive and interactive room-sized computer. C'mon future, we still don't have jetpacks, but can we get one of those computers?

Christine: Actually, we do have jetpacks. I do want some of that Stark technology though, and you know what they say about fiction often leading the way. Many scientists were inspired by Star Trek growing up so you may get your computer one day.

Matt: I can definitely see Steve Jobs watching that scene with Tony's phone at the Senate and taking down notes for the next iPhone. Or Bill Gates in the interactive room scene, for whenever Xbox unveils project Natal.

Christine: I think these kinds of movies can inspire innovation when it comes to the user interface part of things, for sure. Though I'm still wondering what the heck powers that armor, but that probably brings us back to comic book science. "It's magic. We don't have to explain it."

Matt: How about the power of... LOVE? In all seriousness though, there was some crazy science in the movie, what with Stark creating a new element and what have you. I kept waiting for them to call it Vibranium, but it never happened.

Christine: Yes, that did bother me quite a bit. I was waiting for the Vibranium part too. There simply are no elements yet to be created that are also stable, and that's the basic fact. A way to get around that would have been for him to simply come up with a new kind of alloy or a particular chemical process. But then we wouldn't have had that makeshift particle accelerator and Cap's shield supporting it.

Also Featuring!

Christine: I loved the Captain America shield popping up in this movie. Sure, it certainly didn't look as virtually indestructible as you might expect, but that was, of course, part of the fun of the scene. Using it to prop up the home made particle accelerator? Genius.

Matt: It showed up in the first movie too, although in the background. It makes me wonder if Captain America is going to have the round shield in the first movie, since it's supposed to be in World War 2, where Cap normally wields the old non-round shield. Did you stay until after the credits to see the hidden Thor scene?

Christine: I didn't because I forgot about it, but caught it later on YouTube. Very exciting! I love how they're tying everything together.

Matt: Samuel L. Jackson is going to make a fortune just for his cameos too.

Final Words

Matt: So, overall, how much did you like the film? Better or worse than the first one?

Christine: I'd say the first one is better, mostly due to some pacing issues. I think about ten or fifteen minutes should have been cut from this movie, especially around the middle, but I did still enjoy that it took its time with certain scenes. I actually made a point of paying close attention to the teenage guys in the row in front of me, and I don't think they enjoyed it as much as the forty something guy in the next seat. This won't appeal to the strict Spider-Man (movie) fan base at all, but I admire that it tries to do more.

Matt: In the theater I went to, there were a lot of kids (because I went to an early Saturday showing), and you could tell they started getting bored through the middle because they were being loud and playing around in their seats. I would have actually liked to go to the showing after mine, because it was completely packed when were leaving the room, and the audience seemed to be mostly teenagers, which I guess would have enjoyed the film more than the little kids.

Christine: I think the target audience for this movie is the slightly older viewers who like their tech. As a whole, though, I had a good time, it was two hours well spent, and I'll certainly pick up the DVD. I'm actually looking forward to seeing it a second time, I think there might be quite a bit that you won't catch right away.

Matt: You might be looking forward to the DVD, but I am looking forward to Iron Man 3. I really hope all the actors get to reprise their roles.

Christine: I'm looking forward to the sequel, for sure, but I'm even more intrigued by the idea of having all these other Marvel movies coming out and having them all tie together in subtle ways. I think it's really great to see a Marvel Universe come to life on screen, it's just a bummer that they won't be able to unite all of the characters under the same roof, due to copyright issues.

Matt: Just admit that you want an Iron Man/Daredevil film! You know it to be true!

Christine: Well... I'd have a fun time watching Matt Murdock interact with Tony Stark's technology. "Oops, was that the wrong button?" Seriously, though, I'm content having Daredevil in his own little corner movie-wise, but it's a bummer that a character like Spider-Man can't be part of the Avengers movie, for instance.

Matt: We are just going to have to live with the classic Avengers for now, without Wolverine or Spidey, at least until the copyright issues go away.

Conclusion

As you can probably tell, we both had a blast watching the movie and discussing it with each other. Feel free to leave whatever spoiler-heavy comment and discussion in the comments section below. What did you think of the film? What parts did you and didn't you like?

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