Minor nit… not even that but rather something I expected but didn’t see happen…
The first movie made a point of showing that once Stark lost his advanced heart-power thingie and had to replace it with his old one, the suit was running on limited power. I had expected that once Stark made his super-duper power thingie that he might be able to push the suit’s limits even further, helping him win against Whiplash. But it didn’t really seem to make any difference at all (aside from not poisoning him any longer).
RDj is brilliant. The line with Hammer at the party with the reporter was so well delivered.
Whiplash was underused, so very effective. His genius was apparent the way he hacked the system at Hammer in microseconds.
Sam Rockwell was awesome. Just freakingly awesome in is part of trying to be a giant like Tony and fighting to come out of shadow of a big brother in a weasel kinda way. The weapons demo scene with the final weapon had me laughing the loudest in the place.
Don Cheadle is one of my favorite highly talented actors who always delivers. and when he shows up in a scene you know things will be ok. The " You were wrong, but I’m apologizing’ line cracked me up.
Re: Terrence Howard. I’ve read too many bits about him being too big for his britches and a general pain in the ass, so off he went. He’s a dick, from what I’ve read, too much so for Hollywood to deal with and that is saying something.
I found the Expo Fight scene really confusing.
I wanted to punch Pepper Potts in the face when she had to be rescued, again.
Scarlett Johansee surprised me greatly. I thought she was all tits and ass and she showed me some acting and kickass stuff too.
Once I decided to just ignore how easy it apparently is to just create new stable (though apparently not that stable since just in merely existing it puts out energy) elements during an afternoon of tinkering in your shop, I decided I wasn’t going to nitpick anything at all. That must really piss off the guys who spend decades just trying to get a pico-second (entirely indirect) glimpse of a new element.
I found the movie vaguely entertaining, nowhere near as good as the first one. All of the individual elements were fine but I think it was constantly distracting itself with three storylines it needed to muddle through and so ended up giving none of them sufficient attention.
I forgot to add, I didn’t like SLJ’s Nick Fury. He seems more like Snakes On a Plane Samuel L. I think they should have played him with more gravitas and less like a street hustler.
Don’t get me wrong, I love SLJ’s streetwise character. It just felt misplaced with Fury.
You should see Girl With a Pearl Earring if you want to see her act. Not that she didn’t in this, but she’s got the stuff. She’s no Meryl, but she’s not bad.
I have to give the movie major props for casting. Mickey Rourke was a great cartoony bad guy. Sam Rockwell out-smarmed the smarmiest smarm that ever smarmed. Don Cheadle was a better Rhodey than the other guy ever could have been. And Garry Shandling was surprisingly awesome as a slimy senator.
Funny little bit at the end when the Senator poked Tony Stark with the pin. It was good to see Tony get pwned, even ever so slightly.
[spoiler] during the Monaco scene, Whiplash gets crushed by the car against the fence…at least twice! He has no suit, no special powers…why didn’t that incapacitate him at least? Also…all those security guards present while he’s casually strolling down the race track, cutting cars in half…why doesn’t anyone, you know, fucking shoot him in the head?
I realize of course that it would have been detrimental to the plot, but I was still like…“WTF”?[/spoiler]
[spoiler] you should know, a character will always strategically dodge/swat away some lethally-aimed firearm if its detrimental to the plot. Ivan kept swatting Iron Man’s hands away when he was about to fire a repulsor at him. And on that note-
Why not just back away 30 feet? If zapping him from 10 feet away didn’t work the first time, what is trying it a second or third time going to accomplish? [/spoiler]
Interestingly, Stark’s statement to the Senate - “I am Iron Man; the suit and I are one” - can be seen as a subtle warning to the studio that made the film. Let’s see them try to replace him in the role; he *is *the franchise.
Ivan has Crazy Russian powers. Never underestimate Crazy Russians.
I just assumed the exoskeleton he was wearing extended down to his feet, under the jumpsuit, and protected him from the impact.[/SPOILER]
[SPOILER]
The security guards are cowards? I mean, he just cut a speeding car in half! He’s obviously accurate, got good reflexes, and he just cut a car in half! Would you want to get his attention?[/spoiler]
Anyone know what the last bit of the movie was about? Between Stark and Nick Fury?
My take on it is this:
Stark is a pretty crazy guy. He’s not the kind of person you want on your team. However, Iron Man is a brave, effective fighter who can effortlessly coordinate with people very quickly and can fight under very confusing circumstances while defending innocent lives. Thus, Fury will get Iron Man, but not (officially) Tony Stark. Maybe they pretend Tony’s not wearing the suit, maybe they use him as a “consultant” but don’t let him officially join. They don’t want him hanging around a lot because he’s likely to drive everyone else on the team insane or least put a lot of tension into the situation.
I was under the impression that Vanko was deflecting the repulsors with his electro-magic whips but I wasn’t paying enough attention to it to say for sure. Otherwise, forget backing up, just hover 30’ in the air and rain fiery repulsor death down upon him.
The non-fanwank version - the producers don’t want the Avengers movie to become the Robert Downey, Jr. show. They want to showcase the other Avengers. Hard to do with Downey’s charisma in the role and the popularity of Ironman. Fury being the Avengers leader and Stark being an ass gives them room to make that excuse for Ironman/Stark to be a cameo role in the Avengers movie.
He was deflecting them, as far as I saw. Secondly, can Tony even fly in that mini-suit? I don’t recall him even trying, and that is a cut-down version of it…
It might be bigger than a cameo. But I doubt he’ll come even close to dominating the movie. It isn’t in the studio’s best interest to turn the Avengers movie into Iron Man 3.
