Key on Hollywood: Iron Man 2

Hello fair friends.

This is my first review; so forgive me if I’m not good at this yet. I promise by the next time, I will be.

For my first review I’d like to join the pack late in ripping Iron Man 2 apart. There’s nothing like being an armchair director and picking apart someone else’s work when you yourself couldn’t do something on the scale of the Iron Man franchise if Jesus was your 1^st AD. A caveat before I begin. Two actually. It’s been a month since I saw this movie, so some details may be foggy. I would have gotten it to us here earlier, but papa’s been busy. Second, Even with all of my criticism, for this article or for any to come, I would like to point out that all movies are compromise: compromise of the director’s vision with the writer’s script and the budget allowed by a producer representing the wishes of the studio and the financiers. Unfortunately, if the kids with the money say they want Iron Man to fight a giant rabbit, than the creatives actually making the film have to listen. In fact, anytime I see a shitty movie, I blame the studio before I blame the director. Unless it’s Brett Ratner. Fucker.

I went in to this movie with low expectations. The first movie set a new bar for super hero movies, not necessarily defining the genre, but really making a loud statement that the genre has been perfected and is here to stay. I went in knowing that the script would be a bit all over the place and that there might be some cheesy moments here and there, but over all I’d enjoy a popcorn popping special effects spectacular that would leave me cheering in my seat for more. That’s what summer movies are all about, right? I don’t want to watch an elegant drama of two people finding each other’s love through time, I want to watch some guys get the fuck blown out of them. Right? RIGHT!?

My low expectations explained, even WITH those low expectations, I still found myself reacting to this movie like I did to 2012. That expression running the gamut from “Seriously? That’s what you’re going to do? Really?” to “fuck you, I don’t buy it.” I will willingly suspend my disbelief that an armored suit will allow a human being to withstand the pressures of super sonic flight. I will allow my disbelief to be willingly suspended when a tank blows him the FUCK out of the air or when Tony has no burn scars when an arc-reactor blows up in his damn face. I will even go so far as to believe that Tony Stark could throw a party in the Iron Man armor and blow the fuck out of his place with absolutely no casualties. BUT, I will NOT believe, cannot believe, that Tony Stark, as smart as I know he is, one of the world’s foremost geniuses, I totally get it, I read the comics too — but I cannot believe that he could discover one of the world’s most complicated elements in an afternoon. That’s right. Afternoon. Not in one day, even THAT I might buy, but that’s not what happened. If memory serves me right, here’s what happened that day: he woke up with a hangover from hell since he had the shit beat out of him the night before by pre-badass War Machine; was confronted by Nick Fury; discovered that his assistant was a badass spying on him for SHIELD; went to his office where he fucked up his relationship with Pepper and was basically told it wasn’t his company anymore. Okay. So that’s his MORNING. Then he sees the model and starts putting it together. He takes the model home. To Malibu. His office is not in Malibu. In fact, everytime I’ve seen his complex, it’s somewhere in Los Angeles proper, but my assumption is that it isn’t close to Malibu, so we have to assume at LEAST an hour drive from where to wherever. This puts us at a very lenient estimation of, about noon, before he could get all of this done. Then the montage starts and, in one afternoon, he completely remodels his workroom/lab, builds some sort of ramshackle supercollider and somehow makes the element. THEN, after doing ALL of that, he puts the element into a form that he can use in his suit.

You see, I think the creatives behind thisforgot that they had set up the time frame that Hammer was showing off his new Whiplash-designed armor the next day at the conference. That montage over the course of a FEW days, I would buy that. Fine. Stark is super-intelligent, I’m on board. But, an afternoon is asking too too much. I know this is nitpicky, but this is one of the biggest problems with the movie. It really treated the audience like we were stupid, like we wouldn’t see through this shit. It felt like they rushed the script and spoon fed us 4 half-baked stories instead of one solid one with some background character stuff boiling under the surface. Instead of dealing with just Whiplash, he deals with: whiplash, Hammer, Rhodes stealing the Iron Man technology, and Nick Fury going after him. Again, nitpicky, but this is all stuff that contributes to the story lacking some semblance of cohesion and escalating stakes.

Lastly, again nitpicky and perhaps some of you LOVED this, but the winking to the Marvel nerds (ahem, totally me) was a bit over the top. “Hey, here’s Captain America’s Shield.” “Oh hey true believers, make sure you come see the next movie, which is THOR…” That took me right out of the movie.

Would I tell you to go see this movie, yes. It was fun, even with all of the bullshit. Would I tell you that you HAVE to go see this, absolutely not. My recommendation would be peppered with caveats.

I hope to go watch A-Team next which I expect to be a relatively terrible story in terms of the writing (as if I could do it much better. After all, if I could, I’d be doing it, right?) but I can’t wait to see how over –the-top it becomes. As one of my closest friends put it to me when I asked him how it was he said, “Dude, you know that scene in the previews where they parachute a tank and Faceman pops out of the top and starts shooting down planes… dude, that’s not in the final sequence.” Holy. Shit. I’ve got to see this!

Listened to The Beatles. Revolver.