Iron Man 2
May. 6th, 2010 08:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn a word, fun, with the flaws and strengths much but not completely the same as in the first movie.
Firstly, re: sequels in general: when it comes to movies based on comics, I think they must be more challenging to the scriptwriters/directors than the first films. The origin story, with a clear arc for the main character, has already been told. Plus in most cases the most popular antagonist of your source already has been defeated in movie No.1 as well. So, what next? Both Batman sequels - Tim Burton's and Christopher Nolan's - to their respective first films basically went with telling two other people's stories, one an antagonist, one frenemy; Batman Returns is about the Penguin and Catwoman, The Dark Knight is about the Joker and Harvey Dent. Bruce Wayne/Batman is basically around to move their developments forward and/or to respond to their actions. Spiderman II took a cue from Superman II and, while also giving attention to its villains, tried to give the hero a development as well by going for a "hero tries to stop being a hero for the sake of his romantic relationship and a yearned for normal life but returns to heroic job at crucial moment" tale. Which is a tricky one, because instead of sympathetic, the hero can come across as self-indulgent, not to mention the inherent genderfail of not informing the woman in both stories about choices, let alone letting them make them.
Iron Man 2 didn't go in either direction. One of the strengths of the first film was that, while it was clearly centred around Tony Stark and was his story, with Robert Downey Jr. giving a strong performance, Jon Favreau did a really good job of making the supporting characters real as well... with the exception of Obadiah Stane's last reel insanity of going Iron Monger after the jig is up so there can be a climactic fight. (The sensible and in character as established so far thing would have been to do take a jet to the Cayman Islands or whereever else he stashed away some ill-gained profits, but by the laws of comic book movies there must be a physical fight between hero and villain in the last act, and Obediah was the villain.) The same is true for Iron Man 2, only more so. RDJ is great, so is the ensemble, about all of them more in a moment - but the motivation of Mickey Rourke's Whiplash for the grand climactic fight sequence doesn't bear much thinking about. (The character stuff in that fight is about Tony and Rhodey.) Ah well. As opposed to the Batman franchise, the villains were never in danger of being the most interesting part of the tale anyway. Though I will say Sam Rockwell is hilarious and a real gem as Justin Hammer, way more entertaining than the comic book version.
So, when last we left movieverse Tony Stark, he was semi-reformed in as much as he now wanted to do something heroic with his life but still as attention seeking and unable to resist a performance than ever, with "I am Iron Man" delivered as a great mixture of coming out and showing off. In Iron Man 2, he starts by showing off even more, and just when you wonder whether doing this whole Iron Man gig as a complete exercise in ego is negating the epiphany moment in the last film, we get the reveal that Our Hero's energy source which keeps his heart going is also slowly poisoning him, and he's aware he's dying. This is one of the cleverest things the script does. Ever since seeing the guest cast for this film and hearing some advance PR indicating they might do something like the classic Demon in a Bottle storyline, I was wondering how on earth they'd do that. Sidenote: pre-Civil War, Demon in a Bottle was probably the Iron Man storyline most people remember about Tony Stark. It's the one featuring Justin Hammer as a nominal opponent but really about Tony and his alcoholism, and the way you see Tony drinking all the time early on between fights of the week is really clever because it's always presented in a socially acceptable context and the kind of thing you don't think twice about - until you realize that this, not Justin Hammer, is actually the problem and a drunk Tony on his self destructive binges alienates his friends, humiliates himself in public repeatedly and basically hits rock bottom before facing the fact that he's an alcoholic and if he has to have any future at all, he needs to accept help and sober out completely. The problem with doing such are story in an action movie are obvious. For starters, with the suspension of disbelief granted in a comic book movie, there's no way an audience would swallow Tony going from complete drunk to self controlled sober in time for the obligatory big action fight climax. And secondly, as Jon Favreau said in an interview, "we can't do Leaving Las Vegas"; someone (nearly) drinking himself to death isn't what your most of your paying audience came in to see when acquiring an Iron Man movie ticket. So what does the script do? Still keeps the drinking too much (though not to the full Demon in a Bottle degree), humiliating himself in public and self destructiveness, not to mention the imporance of accepting help, but connects it to the awareness of impending death and, crucially, keeps the "I'm dying" moments quiet and completely free of self-pity, and the Tony-acting-out moments responded to by the rest of the ensemble not just accepting it but doing something about it. This is one franchise where when the hero is acting like a jerk, no matter how witty he goes about it (and both script and RDJ keep that character trait for Tony Stark, thankfully), he gets told so in no uncertain terms by those around him.
(And then there's the fact you can handwave and accept cure of blood poisoning by super new invention way easier than recovery from full blown alcoholism in the minimum time a comic book action movie allows, of course. *g*)
Except for the very end, I was happy with how the film handled Pepper and her competent, competent ways; was amused that Jon Favreau gave himself more to do as Happy Hogan this time, and what it was; was reconciled to the Don Cheadle recasting (I always liked Don Cheadle, it just needed a bit of adjustment to accept the switch in Jim Rhodes actors) and liked the way Rhodey was handled in the film; and really loved the way the newbies on the good guy side, Nick Fury and Natasha aka Natalie aka the Black Widow were handled. (Could have done with more Black Widow, actually, but understood why there couldn't be; I really hope she's in the Avengers movie, though.) I noticed that among the people getting thanked in the credits is Matt Fraction, which isn't surprising considering that in addition to the inspiration from the classic Demon in the Bottle, this film draws from several elements from Fraction's current Iron Man comic book run; the fact that "With ALittle Lot Help From My Friends" aka Tony Stark Learns To Be a Team Player could practically be the film's theme tune, Tony making Pepper CEO of Stark Industries, Pepper and Natasha, instead of being rivals, being competently great together throughout the story, Rhodey and Tony being in nominal fight situation due to villain of story but really working together in said fight sequence, among others. Natasha especially reminded me of the way Fraction wrote her and Maria Hill in the recent World's Most Wanted arc, which is great.
(It's also necessary because one thing I definitely did not like was that the film brought Christine Everhart back for a cheap sexist joke. Not just because I've developed affection for Christine, betweenmarina_rusalka's and samdonne's fanfiction, but because the scene was completely unnecessary. So the positive depiction of Black Widow and her relations with Pepper helped to get the bad taste of that out of my mouth.)
The whole Howard Stark "Dad didn't care for me" thing, complete with making Whipslash/Ivan the son of an old business parter/enemy's of Howard's out to avenge his father part of the plot was incredibly clichéd and precticable, but you know, it didn't dominate, so I didn't care. Plus, give me Nick Fury giving Tony an exasparated "pull your act together" talking to over Bruce Wayne brooding the batcave over his dead parents any time. In fact, you could say this film is the anti Dark Knight in many ways: Dark Knight = V.V. Serious Comic Book As High Art, Iron Man 2 = pop corn movie, Dark Night = Batman Nobly Takes Blame And Public Hate, Iron Man 2 = Tony Stark Really Likes To Be Liked Not Inspite But Especially For Being An Occasional Jerk, Dark Knight = Joker Takes Over Gotham And Movie, Iron Man 2 = Bad Guys There To Illustrate Tony's Hubris, Dark Knight = Supporting Cast Killed, Turned Psycho Or Has Child Kidnapped, Iron Man 2 = Supporting Cast Turns Hero, Is Already Hero, Gives Reality Check And All Help Save Day, respectively.
Now, the one thing about Pepper at the end: see, since one of the things I appreciated about Iron Man was that Pepper, despite being attracted, ultimately knew better than to start a romantic relationship with Tony, I was less than happy about Iron Man 2 ending with her quitting her job and then kissing him. For starters, the fact she worked for him was but one of several reasons why a romantic relationship with Tony Stark wasn't a good idea, not the only one. (The main one being, well, you know, Tony.) Secondly, I don't want her to quit because she's great at her job, and there better be a line about her managing a business of her own in the Avengers movie to avoid the inherent genderfail of romance = end of working situation. And thirdly, I suppose I feel about Pepper/Tony like I do about West Wing's Josh/Donna. I'm not opposed to the pairing, I can see why others like it, but it doesn't do anything in particular for me, and romantic relationships wise, I like both of them more with other people. (Speaking of, nice to see Agent Colson back, not nice that it was only briefly, nice again that he's in the post-credit scene which I suppose means he'll also be in the Thor movie.) All this being said? The strawberrys exchange was cute.
Neat twist: Nick Fury at the end telling Tony that based on Natasha's report, they'd rather have him as a consultant than as a team member in the to be founded Avengers, thanks a lot. Which works beautifully both as sincere assessment and reverse psychology, because you can see Tony, fresh from learning his lesson about needing other people, is piqued and though covering with a quip will definitely now try to join the "superhero boy(?)band".
Lastly: best Marvelverse insider gag: Agent Colson being scandalized at Tony using what suspiciously looks like Captain America's shield ("do you know that that is?") as a supporting part in his macguffin thingie to build himself a new energy source.
Firstly, re: sequels in general: when it comes to movies based on comics, I think they must be more challenging to the scriptwriters/directors than the first films. The origin story, with a clear arc for the main character, has already been told. Plus in most cases the most popular antagonist of your source already has been defeated in movie No.1 as well. So, what next? Both Batman sequels - Tim Burton's and Christopher Nolan's - to their respective first films basically went with telling two other people's stories, one an antagonist, one frenemy; Batman Returns is about the Penguin and Catwoman, The Dark Knight is about the Joker and Harvey Dent. Bruce Wayne/Batman is basically around to move their developments forward and/or to respond to their actions. Spiderman II took a cue from Superman II and, while also giving attention to its villains, tried to give the hero a development as well by going for a "hero tries to stop being a hero for the sake of his romantic relationship and a yearned for normal life but returns to heroic job at crucial moment" tale. Which is a tricky one, because instead of sympathetic, the hero can come across as self-indulgent, not to mention the inherent genderfail of not informing the woman in both stories about choices, let alone letting them make them.
Iron Man 2 didn't go in either direction. One of the strengths of the first film was that, while it was clearly centred around Tony Stark and was his story, with Robert Downey Jr. giving a strong performance, Jon Favreau did a really good job of making the supporting characters real as well... with the exception of Obadiah Stane's last reel insanity of going Iron Monger after the jig is up so there can be a climactic fight. (The sensible and in character as established so far thing would have been to do take a jet to the Cayman Islands or whereever else he stashed away some ill-gained profits, but by the laws of comic book movies there must be a physical fight between hero and villain in the last act, and Obediah was the villain.) The same is true for Iron Man 2, only more so. RDJ is great, so is the ensemble, about all of them more in a moment - but the motivation of Mickey Rourke's Whiplash for the grand climactic fight sequence doesn't bear much thinking about. (The character stuff in that fight is about Tony and Rhodey.) Ah well. As opposed to the Batman franchise, the villains were never in danger of being the most interesting part of the tale anyway. Though I will say Sam Rockwell is hilarious and a real gem as Justin Hammer, way more entertaining than the comic book version.
So, when last we left movieverse Tony Stark, he was semi-reformed in as much as he now wanted to do something heroic with his life but still as attention seeking and unable to resist a performance than ever, with "I am Iron Man" delivered as a great mixture of coming out and showing off. In Iron Man 2, he starts by showing off even more, and just when you wonder whether doing this whole Iron Man gig as a complete exercise in ego is negating the epiphany moment in the last film, we get the reveal that Our Hero's energy source which keeps his heart going is also slowly poisoning him, and he's aware he's dying. This is one of the cleverest things the script does. Ever since seeing the guest cast for this film and hearing some advance PR indicating they might do something like the classic Demon in a Bottle storyline, I was wondering how on earth they'd do that. Sidenote: pre-Civil War, Demon in a Bottle was probably the Iron Man storyline most people remember about Tony Stark. It's the one featuring Justin Hammer as a nominal opponent but really about Tony and his alcoholism, and the way you see Tony drinking all the time early on between fights of the week is really clever because it's always presented in a socially acceptable context and the kind of thing you don't think twice about - until you realize that this, not Justin Hammer, is actually the problem and a drunk Tony on his self destructive binges alienates his friends, humiliates himself in public repeatedly and basically hits rock bottom before facing the fact that he's an alcoholic and if he has to have any future at all, he needs to accept help and sober out completely. The problem with doing such are story in an action movie are obvious. For starters, with the suspension of disbelief granted in a comic book movie, there's no way an audience would swallow Tony going from complete drunk to self controlled sober in time for the obligatory big action fight climax. And secondly, as Jon Favreau said in an interview, "we can't do Leaving Las Vegas"; someone (nearly) drinking himself to death isn't what your most of your paying audience came in to see when acquiring an Iron Man movie ticket. So what does the script do? Still keeps the drinking too much (though not to the full Demon in a Bottle degree), humiliating himself in public and self destructiveness, not to mention the imporance of accepting help, but connects it to the awareness of impending death and, crucially, keeps the "I'm dying" moments quiet and completely free of self-pity, and the Tony-acting-out moments responded to by the rest of the ensemble not just accepting it but doing something about it. This is one franchise where when the hero is acting like a jerk, no matter how witty he goes about it (and both script and RDJ keep that character trait for Tony Stark, thankfully), he gets told so in no uncertain terms by those around him.
(And then there's the fact you can handwave and accept cure of blood poisoning by super new invention way easier than recovery from full blown alcoholism in the minimum time a comic book action movie allows, of course. *g*)
Except for the very end, I was happy with how the film handled Pepper and her competent, competent ways; was amused that Jon Favreau gave himself more to do as Happy Hogan this time, and what it was; was reconciled to the Don Cheadle recasting (I always liked Don Cheadle, it just needed a bit of adjustment to accept the switch in Jim Rhodes actors) and liked the way Rhodey was handled in the film; and really loved the way the newbies on the good guy side, Nick Fury and Natasha aka Natalie aka the Black Widow were handled. (Could have done with more Black Widow, actually, but understood why there couldn't be; I really hope she's in the Avengers movie, though.) I noticed that among the people getting thanked in the credits is Matt Fraction, which isn't surprising considering that in addition to the inspiration from the classic Demon in the Bottle, this film draws from several elements from Fraction's current Iron Man comic book run; the fact that "With A
(It's also necessary because one thing I definitely did not like was that the film brought Christine Everhart back for a cheap sexist joke. Not just because I've developed affection for Christine, between
marina_rusalka's and samdonne's fanfiction, but because the scene was completely unnecessary. So the positive depiction of Black Widow and her relations with Pepper helped to get the bad taste of that out of my mouth.)The whole Howard Stark "Dad didn't care for me" thing, complete with making Whipslash/Ivan the son of an old business parter/enemy's of Howard's out to avenge his father part of the plot was incredibly clichéd and precticable, but you know, it didn't dominate, so I didn't care. Plus, give me Nick Fury giving Tony an exasparated "pull your act together" talking to over Bruce Wayne brooding the batcave over his dead parents any time. In fact, you could say this film is the anti Dark Knight in many ways: Dark Knight = V.V. Serious Comic Book As High Art, Iron Man 2 = pop corn movie, Dark Night = Batman Nobly Takes Blame And Public Hate, Iron Man 2 = Tony Stark Really Likes To Be Liked Not Inspite But Especially For Being An Occasional Jerk, Dark Knight = Joker Takes Over Gotham And Movie, Iron Man 2 = Bad Guys There To Illustrate Tony's Hubris, Dark Knight = Supporting Cast Killed, Turned Psycho Or Has Child Kidnapped, Iron Man 2 = Supporting Cast Turns Hero, Is Already Hero, Gives Reality Check And All Help Save Day, respectively.
Now, the one thing about Pepper at the end: see, since one of the things I appreciated about Iron Man was that Pepper, despite being attracted, ultimately knew better than to start a romantic relationship with Tony, I was less than happy about Iron Man 2 ending with her quitting her job and then kissing him. For starters, the fact she worked for him was but one of several reasons why a romantic relationship with Tony Stark wasn't a good idea, not the only one. (The main one being, well, you know, Tony.) Secondly, I don't want her to quit because she's great at her job, and there better be a line about her managing a business of her own in the Avengers movie to avoid the inherent genderfail of romance = end of working situation. And thirdly, I suppose I feel about Pepper/Tony like I do about West Wing's Josh/Donna. I'm not opposed to the pairing, I can see why others like it, but it doesn't do anything in particular for me, and romantic relationships wise, I like both of them more with other people. (Speaking of, nice to see Agent Colson back, not nice that it was only briefly, nice again that he's in the post-credit scene which I suppose means he'll also be in the Thor movie.) All this being said? The strawberrys exchange was cute.
Neat twist: Nick Fury at the end telling Tony that based on Natasha's report, they'd rather have him as a consultant than as a team member in the to be founded Avengers, thanks a lot. Which works beautifully both as sincere assessment and reverse psychology, because you can see Tony, fresh from learning his lesson about needing other people, is piqued and though covering with a quip will definitely now try to join the "superhero boy(?)band".
Lastly: best Marvelverse insider gag: Agent Colson being scandalized at Tony using what suspiciously looks like Captain America's shield ("do you know that that is?") as a supporting part in his macguffin thingie to build himself a new energy source.
