The Air Force loves an excuse to do a flyover for big events. Since they were flying that way anyhow, giving Tony Stark a lift was probably a convenient morale thing for the airmen aboard the jet. No doubt there was a bunch of shaking hands and taking pictures (throwing up gang signs, for certain) back at the base that launched the jet.
Something that I thought of during the movie: When Hammer and Whiplash are eating in the hangar, Hammer mentions that his desert was flown in from San Fransisco, “but it’s Italian.”
They’re somewhere within driving distance of the prison they busted Whiplash out of. This prison is most likely in France (assuming Monaco doesn’t have such a prison itself). This means that it would have been far easier and cheaper to just get the desert from Italy.
I can’t decide if this is just a tacky display of Hammer’s self-indulgence, or just a sign of how much of a dumbass tool he is, having Italian food flown in from America when he could easily just go to Italy for it.
Natasha Romanov is the Black Widow, a Russian spy and girlfriend to various heroes. In the comic books she had special bracelets that gave her a shock power.
This movie stank. The plot was contrived out of every action plot in the past 30 years (including, sadly, Field of Dreams), shoe-horned together with a stapler. Things happened for virtually no reason at all, people did things that were completely out of character, and it seems like half the plot was left on the cutting room floor.
But, I think the worst thing that they did (which is pretty much the main failing of every bad superhero movie ever made) was that the villain stank. They knew, going in, that Iron Man biggest enemy is Tony Stark, yet they continue to force obscure villains into the story that nobody cares about. When you have a SUPER hero, you need a SUPER villain. Period. Once Tony got his armor on, he crushed Vanko in like 20 seconds. He also spent a stupid amount of time flying around vs the drones (presumably to prevent harm to Rhodes) and then destroyed them even faster than Vanko. Hammer, in this film, was basically comic relief.
On top of this, why did the minor characters get so much screen time? Who cares about pepper, the black widow, fury, etc.? When I go to an Iron man movie, I expect to see lots and lots of Iron man. Seriously, no “real” fights in the entire film? It was like watching Monday Night Raw back in the 90’s: squash after squash with boring yapping in between.
[edit]: Oh wait, the one “real” fight in the film was the driver vs. the security guard. Wow.
Can’t it be both? There’s nothing that says that he can’t be a tacky self-indulgent dumbass tool.
Also note that they were getting their butts kicked until they actually coordinated and worked together. They would have been toast without the repulsor-collision. And note that Whiplash’s whips, even the first version, did considerably more damage than anything we’d seen in the previous movie.
As far as I know, generals will return a salute - but the lower ranking officer initiates the salute and then holds it until it’s returned and the superior officer drops his salute, at which point the lower rank can drop his.
Superhal’s post is the second time I’ve heard the whole “Iron Man’s biggest enemy is Tony Stark” thing.
To the comic book knowledgeable among you: Is this something that is delved deeply into in the comic book?
Being familiar with only the movies, I can definitely see the potential for the “my own worst enemy” angle. Wondering how much the comic book explores it. Having heard the suggestion twice now I wonder if it is an ongoing theme.
Pretty much. Even at his best, Tont Stark has a huge self-destructive streak. He’s in the bad habit of making his problems much, much worse with booze, souring relationships because of his inability to function without somethign to focus on. Actually, it’s interesting that Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes is even more this way than his Iron Man - his Holmes tends to go borderline insane without a mystery to investigate and decipher.
About the General saluting first: although technically wrong, it was the General’s way of letting Rhodes know, in no uncertain terms, that the discussion was over. By initiating the salute, the General semi-politely told Rhodes to shut up, because he’s walking away now.
As for Vanko getting hit several times by the car in Monaco: at the end of the scene we see that his power harness extends to his legs as well, and thus seems to be an exo-skeleton. It’s never quite clear exactly what it does, but all he needs are some body panels to make it into an actual armor suit.
Yep. In all the Iron Man comics I’ve read (admittedly, I haven’t read IM as much as others) the villain of the month is some B-list loser (e.g. the Swordsman) who really wouldn’t have a chance against the much faster and stronger IM. His armor, in most cases, is essentially a deus ex machina (much like Batman’s utility belt) that can spit out just about anything that is required by the plot.
To make the fights less one-sided, he is often distracted or suffering the results of the latest mistakes in his personal life. In the original comics (grey suit,) he had the limitation of requiring that the chest plate be plugged into an outlet to recharge every X hours, so he would always be on the verge of running out of power or dying.
For example, to defeat Villain X, he needs to blast him with his chest plate repulsor ray. However, he only has one shot to use it, otherwise he will drain all the power out of his suit and die.
But, in essence, it boils down to the fact that a hero needs their physical equal to have an interesting fight. That IM’s armor can basically do anything and everything makes it almost impossible to find a villain that is his match. Therefore, he’s given all sorts of physical or psychological handicaps to make the fight more balanced. Therefore, when he’s fighting Villain X, he’s actually fighting himself at the same time.
Yeah, it’s very rare for a superior officer to salute his junior, but there’s a very short list of responses the subordinate can use. Pretty much he salutes back. Granted, the only times I’ve ever seen an office salute a junior member is when said guy completely failed to render the salute to the superior to begin with, typically because they were distracted at the time.
I read thru this thread before posting, but I can’t remember everyone who said what, so I’ll just say that I found this movie to be “meh”. I was so bored I almost walked out twice, but my truck was in the shop and wouldn’t be done for hours, so I stayed.
And even at that, I still thought this was a much better movie than the first one, even tho I thought RDJ had toned it down a lot (too much, IMO). I thought Cheadle was terrible (worse than Rockwell, even), Johansson looked great but was mostly just there and in costume, and has anyone ever really given a rat’s ass about Pepper or Happy?
I thought the subplots were too numerous, the “romance” between Pepper and Tony was terrible (there is no chemistry in this movie, and only a little in the first), and the villians poorly-written (Hammer) or too lightly-written (how fucking much theoretical physics can you learn just from your father while exiled in Siberia? And mad computer skillz too?). I thought Rourke did his now-customary excellent job with the material and time he was given, but I thought the character’s backstory was too weak.
Also, I thought Favreau’s directing pretty much fucked up the movie. I don’t think he’s got a very good sense of humor, timing, or tension. He’s also kind of a shitty actor.
I know I’m in the small minority here, but I won’t own these for my home, and I wouldn’t watch them again without drugs, or sex, or both, and only then if the drugs and/or sex were conditional on watching the movie(s).
This is sounding more and more like the dessert was fictional, as a previous user has mentioned they were probably in France when Hammer said that. But would anyone have any idea if the dessert shown in the movie was fictional or real? Were the writers actually thinking of a place in San Francisco that makes such an awesome Italian dessert that it would warrant having it flown over to another place?
Frankly, it just looked like a standard ice cream sundae. But it’s an expensive Italian ice cream sundae that was flown in from San Francisco, which is all that matters to Hammer.
That is if it was actually expensive or Italian or flown anywhere. I took from the scene that he’s just bullshitting Vanko to make himself seem all high class, like he wishes he was.
Thor isn’t omnipotent. Far from it. None of the Aesir are ever portrayed that way, in myth nor in the comics.
Anyway, it looks like they’re going with a much more Ultimates feel to these movies, so I expect a slightly hippy, fully-self-aware eco-warrior type, rather than the cripple doctor/god in hiding of the classic comic.
That’s why Doctor Doom is pretty much the perfect foe for Tony, even if he’s really an FF villain. If Kingpin (really a Spider-Man villain) can be Daredevil’s archnemesis, why not?
Finally saw the movie. (I’m cheap and I wait until they get to the second run theatres.)
It was good but not as good as the first one. It’s biggest flaw was that it was trying to weave too many seperate storylines together. We had:
Tony vs Whiplash
Tony vs Hammer
Tony fighting the government to keep control of the Iron Man suit
The relationship between Tony and Pepper
The relationship between Tony and Rhodey
The relationship between Tony and his father
Tony dying of palladium exposure
Introducing the Black Widow character
Introducing Happy Hogan’s character (He was barely in the first movie)
Nick Fury getting the Avengers going
That’s way too many for a two hour movie. The result was all of them felt like they were being rushed.
And two minor nitpicks I don’t think anyone else mentioned.
Couldn’t they afford to get a decent looking eyepatch for Samuel L. Jackson? The thing he was wearing looked like they bought it at a post-halloween sale at a dollar store.
What was up with Scarlett Johannson’s hair during her fight scene? There was a really weird effect going on that made it move in some bizarrely unnatural way - like it was supposed to be a medusa effect or something but I don’t think it was intentional. It was weird enough that it distracted me from Scarlett Johannson in a leather catsuit.
I agree with Superhal’s point. The first two movies have tried to challenge Tony with opponents who are trying to beat him at his own game - they all try to defeat him by building a better Iron Man suit than he has. It would be more interesting to see some villain thinking laterally and trying to defeat him by getting around the suit.
Look at some of the classic hero-villain match-ups like Superman vs Lex Luther (strength vs intelligence) or Batman vs Joker (reason vs insanity). Iron Man’s stuck with battles that are just “my power suit’s bigger than your power suit”. He needs an opponent who attacks him from a completely different direction.