movies: iron man 2

This seems a little weird to say about "a comic book movie", but the first Iron Man movie actually had a lot of heart... it tore down it's main character, took this apathetic playboy, stripped him down to nothing and then essentially built him back up into a hero.

Iron Man 2 takes that hero, and turns him back into the spoiled, bratty playboy.

Sure, the movie gives you "reasons" for his behaviour, but taking him back to this place and not really wearing him down at all before building him back up isn't anywhere near as satisfying.

The movie does tick most of the boxes though... and to mix my metaphor slightly, it delivers what it says on the box. There's things that blow up, there's Iron Man, there's Scarlett Johansson in a skin tight black outfit (personally I don't see the appeal, partly because I think she's a bit of a crap actress), there's the other Iron Man (okay, technically I know it's War Machine), there's Mickey Rourke who fortunately isn't in a skin tight outfit and who does a reasonable Russian accent... but he's a bit m'eh...

There are a few things overall that are m'eh... the whole reason Rourke's character hates Tony Stark is incredibly glossed over... I mean it makes some degree of sense within the confines of the movie, but it's stretching the bounds of the movie's own internal logic a little bit.

However Rouke is just plain sketchy (how much of that is the character and how much is him is open for interpretation)... and honestly, the character never really has much menace.

I also wanted to knock the snot out of Sam Rockwell, who fills in the "clueless rival" portion of the script.

And while I don't have a problem with Don Cheadle's performance, I still don't think he's as appropriate for a military man as Terrence Howard was.

Rounding out my list of character gripes, it really did look like Samuel L. Jackson had wandered in from some other movie. Everything else seemed to be grounded in some kind of reality, but Sam's Nick Fury just stuck out like a sore thumb in just about every scene. I think possibly it was the wardrobe.

But like I said, it ticks all the boxes and delivers what it promises... things go boom, there are some moments of humour, there are a few tips of the hat to the proposed Avengers movie (even before the post credit teaser which did give me a vague ripple of excitement), there's a not particularly subtle Walt Disney reference, Gwyneth Paltrow and Scarlett look suitably sexy in skin tight business attire (if you like that kind of thing) and you have double the amount of Iron Mans... Iron Men... whatever...

Oh but the scene I keep seeing in the trailer, with Gwyneth kissing the Iron Man mask before throwing it out of a plane... it's not actually in the movie... (I'm guessing it should have come right at the beginning).

It's a passable way to spend a couple of hours, but it's nowhere near as good as the first one.

yani's rating: 2 Russian cockatoos out of 5