iron man! man of even more iron!

[freckles_and_doubt]

Things I Love About Being Single: deciding, randomly, at 3pm after a slew of annoying student consults that I damned well deserved to see Iron Man 2 almost immediately, and hieing myself off to the 5pm show after work without further deliberation or consultation. It's a relatively civilised experience, too, given that it's the third day after it opened (and may I send a small, not particularly malicious gloat in the direction of the North American continent here? Thank you). There were approximately thirty people in the theatre, most of them twenty-somethings, half of them groups of males, and only three others besides myself sufficiently in the know to sit it out through the credits for the easter egg. (Insert token fangirly squee here.)

I shall cut detailed wurblings in the interest of spoilerage, but I have to say up front: there were things about the movie that annoyed me, but I realised only halfway home that people were probably looking at me oddly because of the enormous grin I wore involuntarily all the way back to the car, possibly suggesting I just got laid in a shopping mall. You're getting a review right now this instant because (a) squee, and (b) I woke up randomly at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep, and fangirly reviews work better on sleep dep than do academic papers.

I'm going to get the negatives out of the way first. Things I Didn't Like About Iron Man 2:

• Weirdly, too much of this movie wasn't a surprise - the marketing overdid it with pre-released clips, I'd seen too much of it before. I think the Monaco race sequences would have been more effective if they weren't in every trailer, which is sad, because they were fun.
  
• The women. Pepper Potts really isn't working, probably because of the Goopy Gwyneth Factor. I don't like her, I don't think the writers, director or other actors like her, she's being turned into a strident flappy thing by the script, and she has absolutely no chemistry with RDJ, which I would have thought was an actual biological impossibility. Also, Scarlett can't act, and while I rather enjoyed Black Widow's kick-butt martial arts and air of impenetrable scorn, she was a bit of a paper cut-out.
  
• The over-use of the playboy motif. Tony Stark strutting in front of go-go dancers and falling-over drunk at parties in the Iron Man suit just doesn't do it for me - I can see what they tried to do there, but no. I will have my superheroes actually sexy, thank you. Kick-butt metal suits in interesting martial arts sequences are. Playboys aren't. (And the case of the Universe vs. Extemporanea Is A Sad Geek rests). I do realise that some of the comics plot arcs took him even further down into alcoholism and poverty, but still no. Sorry.
  
• Some odd and trailing plot ends, like the fact that Tony's absolute refusal to let the military have the Iron Man suit ends up drifting off into an oh, all right, then, without further examination. Also, New Element Coded By Emotionally Distant Daddy In Complicated Diorama sounds like something out of Fringe, which in plot terms is not a recommendation, even though the bit where he trashes the house to create it with exciting lasers and tubes and things is way cool.
  
• Too much Happy Hogan, oddly enough. A director cameo is only tasteful and explicable when it's a cameo.

The rest, then, is a bit of a fangirly rave: I don't think this was a great film, but it was actually more interesting than I expected, and fulfilled the basic requirement of being bloody good fun to watch. Things I Liked About Iron Man 2:

• This was a surprisingly complex plot which, caveats above notwithstanding, held together fairly well in its layering. Lots of things pulling Tony in different directions, making his sad, temporary degeneration understandable if not entirely forgiveable. His fight against his technology was nicely paralleled by his fight against his shadow selves, Hammer and Whiplash both, and his battle with the military-industrial complex he refuses to allow to define him. There was a lot of there there, plotwise.
  
• The bad guys made this movie. Mickey Rourke, in particular, basically stole the film, which is pretty good going when you're up against RDJ. (The film has a slight case of Two Towers Syndrome, actually: in the first movie the casting of RDJ is so overwhelmingly perfect you're overwhelmed. By the second movie you take it for granted, even though it's possibly an even better performance). Also, I never thought I'd put this phrase in the same sentence as either "Mickey Rourke" or "embittered Russian dude with giant electric whips and a pet bird", but his performance was nicely restrained.
  
• I also loved the characterisation of Hammer. It was only halfway home that the film's seriously extended play with phallic metaphor actually hit me, causing me to giggle for the next eight blocks. Hell, even Whiplash has a cockatoo. Hammer, of course, is the over-compensatory foil to Stark's phallic authority, desperately trying to prove he's equal to all that iron when in fact he's in the small-dick class of Michael Bay. His name, his business, his recruitment of Whiplash are always inadequate against the hard-on of the iron man, and the damp-squib fizzle of his Ultimate Weapon is inevitable. He's the pale, limp, imitative shadow of Tony Stark: Stark's true opposite, equally the scientist son of an inventor father, is Ivan Vanko, and Hammer is completely out-dicked by both of them. (Sad to say, I think he might also be out-dicked by Black Widow).
  
• There were some very cool toys in this film. The suits, of course, and I always enjoy superheroes fighting in concert, but particularly JARVIS's holo projections and all the grimy particle accelerator bits. Man with blowtorch, so hot. My favourite of all, though, was possibly the little cellphoney gadget Tony used to hijack the Senate presentation. I want one. Several. The world needs more computer apps with sliding windows.
  
• Two words. Suitcase. Armour. Oh, yeah.

You can probably sum up my response to the movie in this simple statement: any of you Cape Town lot who are off to see it in sociable groups in the near future, I'm totally up for it.

Comments

[herne-kzn.livejournal.com]

Oh how to I swear about forgetting to wait for the easter egg. Swear, swear. Oh well, just have to see it again I guess. Oh fie.

Also, the image of what it takes to do (at the beginning) neuro-mechanical engineering and (later) high energy physics. It seems to take both the Right Stuff and either an hammer and anvil or wrench and a spirit level. So more, well RDJ/MR and less Sheldon Cooper.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Any man is immediately sexier stripped to the waist and pounding things on an anvil, so I have no problem with their version of "high energy physics".

In other news, I may be hopelessly imprinted by the SCA.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I liked it. I found it to be entertaining, armour-plated manly nonsense.

Amusing that Stark's attempt to do the We Have To Talk thing involves taking three hours to burn an omelette.

Do you have to use the words "extended play" and "phallic" together?

Was Elon Musk's cameo the Easter egg?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Do you have to use the words "extended play" and "phallic" together?

I've been lecturing on vampires for two weeks, of course I have to.

The easter egg was Thor's hammer. Another phallic symbol. Hmmm.

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

In the first Iron Man, they surreptitiously planted Cap A's shield in his workroom. I dunno if you noticed.

Shields aren't very phallic, so maybe not.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Hey! I frequently notice things even if they're not phallic. The fact that I completely failed to notice the shield is completely accidental. Completely!

Eggies

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

The shield was in this one as well, when (I forget who) asks him "what's this doing here?" and he says "That's exactly what I need" and puts it under the laser thing to make it level :).

I started squeeing as soon as I saw the whole in the ground at the end. I knew it would be the hammer, I'm a Thor fangirl :).

In response to above:

Neg no.2: Me too. PP is lame and so not a good match for RDJ/TS. SJ, while I love her and would leave my husband for her, was not a good Black Widow. Yes, she's pretty but she has no flavour. Also, amazing how she manages to perm her hair and climb into a black rubber suit in the back of the car. Maybe the suit's so hot it instaperms her hair.

Neg no.3: it was just the right amount of playboy. I love love love love love how TS and RDJ are basically the same person (famous dad, spoiled kid, genius talent, drug/alcohol problems). They couldn't have cast it better, imho.

Neg no.4: I thought the "letting Rhodes steal the Warhammer suit" thing was very logical, seeing as he thought he was dying and all. Also, he sekritly wanted a BFF.

Pos no.1-5: yes. Alot :P. I loves me some Mickey Rourke (who looks really weird nowadays, btw) with kinda grimy backyard-tech electric whip action. Great foil to TS and his ultra-shiny commercial tech.

I would totally see this again(s).

Re: Eggies

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

It wasn't so much the "letting Rhodes steal the suit" thing, it was the way that the implications of that - the extremely worrying idea that the American military, in all its brainless glory, now has that tech - was glossed over completely. It's a thoroughly serious and meaningful concern of Tony Stark's, and it kinda falls by the wayside.

I totally didn't realise that the weird metallic cutout thingy he sticks under the laser was a shield. I couldn't work out what the hell it was. I need to see this movie again.