Iron Man 2 — Awesome, Could Have Been Better
Robot Viking is obviously not a film review site, but Iron Man has long been my favorite fictional character, so I’m stepping outside of the gaming box briefly today to review the latest Shellhead extravaganza. Wondering how the movie looked to a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool Iron Man fanboy? Pretty damn good, but as usual, I have my complaints.
Without a doubt, I loved Iron Man 2. It’s a movie I will see again (and again and again) and eventually own on DVD. I walked out of the theater happy. Elated, even. It was a classic superhero action-adventure, a comic book brought to life — it was even a good old Marvel team-up, Iron Man and Black Widow! That fight scene against the drones with War Machine and Iron Man was spine-tingling. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Wait, yes I can.
It was a fun movie, and it brought me great joy to see Iron Man on the silver screen. I think a part of that joy is a weird feeling of vindication — when you’re 12 and digging worn Iron Man back issues out of the long boxes at the collectible shop at the corner of your grandma’s street, you don’t exactly feel like a lot of other people are into the same things as you. So there’s that whole, “Wow, the rest of the world finally likes the stuff I like enough to make a $200 million movie about it!” feeling. Looking beyond that, though, I wish the movie had been a bit deeper.
See, the thing that keeps me coming back to Iron Man over the years is the thematic depth. It’s not just about fantasy fulfillment and flying around in superpowered armor. It isn’t even just about Tony Stark’s alcoholism, though that is a powerful story element. The major underlying theme to every Iron Man story is technology: how much it can help us, and how often it does more harm than good. That’s an issue I think about a lot when I write about science, and it’s something we all experience to some extent every day. From the car to the atom bomb, no piece of technology is free of negative consequences, and the many fruits of Tony Stark’s genius are not excluded.
Both Iron Man movies touch on that idea (it’s more prominent in the first one). The villains Iron Man faces in the movies are derived from the power supply technology Stark developed. That idea could have been fleshed out more and made more of a focus (rather than Stark’s gallivanting). Tony Stark is a utopian. He has always believed that technology can, should and will solve humanity’s problems. In the comic books, however, fate keeps reminding him that nothing’s that simple. There are two great examples I can think of. The first is the Armor Wars story arc, which wouldn’t work in a movie because it depends on Iron Man’s position within a larger superhero community, and a sizable rogue’s gallery with two decades of history. Still, when Stark realizes that armored supervillains have been using a stolen version of Iron Man tech to commit crimes (and kill innocent people), it hits him very hard, and he goes on a crusade to get the technology back.
The other is the Stark Space Station. In the 80s, Stark Enterprises funded this orbital platform for scientific research, and Stark actually built it himself, as Iron Man. Almost immediately, the station was used by terrorists to deploy an orbital laser, then it was infected with a genetically engineered virus, leaving it uninhabitable. Later, Iron Man returned to the station to fight a space monster created by the U.S. government. The virus, left inert by the vacuum inside the abandoned station, was reactivated when the life support systems were turned back on. The virus killed the space monster (if I seem to be going on at length about this particular incident, it comes from Iron Man Vol. 1, 237, one of the best comic book issues ever. It has an amazing cover, and the story is simply classic science-fiction that just happens to feature Iron Man). Finally, a techno-organic virus killed a crew of human scientists, and Stark was forced to destroy the Stark Space Station and abandon space exploration entirely.
Am I saying the movies should have used those exact plots? No. My point is, as much as Iron Man is about James Bond with an armored suit, it’s also about shattered dreams. I wish the movies drove that point home harder. I wish we saw more of the emotional effects on Stark when his inventions are used in ways he doesn’t anticipate, or when they don’t solve the problems he wants them to solve. I think that would have been more interesting than the mopey angst about his dad that made Iron Man 2 a bit too soft in the middle.
I’ll finish this off with a high, a low and a middle for the supporting cast. High: Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. Though they glossed over the character’s Russian origins (slightly odd in a movie with a Russian villain), the movie wasn’t weighed down by her backstory. She showed up, played an amusing background role, then stepped to center stage at the right moment and kicked serious ass.
Low: Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. They mentioned that Fury had been friends with Stark’s father (in the comics, Fury stays vigorous in the modern era despite having fought in WWII because of exposure to a rejuvenation formula). Yet there’s no hint in Jackson’s portrayal that this is a grizzled war veteran. There’s no grizzle at all, just Samuel L. Jackson reading the lines as Samuel L. Jackson. He had more attitude in Snakes on a Plane!
Middle: Don Cheadle as Rhodey. This is a middle because I still don’t think Cheadle is right for the part, but he’s miles better than Terrence Howard. Cheadle performed Rhodey as well as I could have expected. The problem is, the character isn’t being written properly. Maybe I’m descending into fanboy nitpicking here, but Rhodey is a combat veteran, a former mercenary, a bad-ass and a top notch pilot. He’s not an officer (certainly not the soft-spoken effete version Howard gave us). He’s not uptight. He’s a great foil for Stark’s ego, which he is not afraid to deflate now and then. They did better in Iron Man 2, but I have a hard time buying anyone other than Wesley Snipes as James Rhodes. I’d always just assumed he would get the role.
It’s a given that Iron Man 3 will be made. So far we’ve been given two really good Iron Man movies. I know that, as the franchise goes on, there will inevitably be some bad ones. I just hope we can get one or two great movies out of it as well.
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May 19th, 2010 1:52 AM
I’m glad to know that an actual Iron Man fan enjoyed the movie too. I don’t really know much of anything about Iron Man, and his various adventures. I owned one, random comic in which he, and War Machine fight some dude who basically gets an extra life every time he kills somebody. Definitely interesting, I was just never much of a comic collector (other than Sonic the Hedgehog. Don’t you judge me.)
It would be great to see some heavier moral/psychological stuff get put into these movies, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Hollywood likes to think we’re simpletons.
Speaking of which, I watched the review of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace that was mentioned (by Joe I believe?) a few weeks ago. Hilarious, as was the subsequent review of Attack of the Clones. The guy also does Avatar, and most of the Star Trek movies. Definitely check him out if you haven’t already. Goes by RedLetterMedia on YouTube.
May 19th, 2010 2:16 AM
I’m judging you for the Sonic comics, and my boxes say you’re a pretty cool guy.I have every issue from 56 to 175ish. There is some great stuff in there.
May 19th, 2010 2:24 AM
Yes! I just had a similar moment of vindication to Ed’s. I don’t remember where my collection ends, but it’s in the hundreds, and it begins nearly from issue one. I’ve also got all of the Knuckles comics.
May 19th, 2010 10:02 AM
Yea, I got most6 of the knuckles comics, from whatever was simultaneus to 56 til the end of the series. They were both pretty good. Then they both started getting bad, rapidly.
May 19th, 2010 10:45 AM
Agreed; I think I started to bow out right around, or slightly after the point where they began incorporating the Sonic Adventure game (which I liked as a game, but cared little about as a comic adaptation.) I could be wrong, but that’s the last story arc I can remember.
May 19th, 2010 12:03 PM
The sequel possibilities are interesting. They aren’t planning to do Iron Man 3. After Thor and Captain America come out they’re going to do an Avengers movie with all of them (and Hulk too). Obviously this can turn out to be really good or really bad. I hope they take some clues from how they wrote Black Widow in this one. Since it’s going to be an ensemble movie with familiar characters, they need to keep focused. They have to avoid going into too much backstory on minor characters and even major characters like the villains fo the piece.
As for them not going into her Russian background, that makes sense. She is very professional in her demeanor and it isn’t relevant to her mission. If they’d have had her waxing nostalgic about the old country, it would have been jarring. I could see more opportunity if she had met the russian bad guy in character.
May 19th, 2010 12:33 PM
I know they’re going to bring the characters together for Avengers, but I guarantee there will be an Iron Man 3 at some point. It killed at the box office, and that’s how Hollywood works.
Ok, so, not judging. I’m assuming there was some kind of interesting storyline or emotional aspect to Sonic the Hedgehog that made you both fans? I only know him as a fast running video game character. And I think I only ever played the very first Sonic game. What about it made you both collect dozens of issues?
May 19th, 2010 8:31 PM
Sorry in advance for being long-winded.
One of the main drives, I’m sure, is that at the time I was collecting the comics, the games didn’t suck. I was a huge fan of the games (to the point that I drew Sonic and Knuckles every chance I got,) and that is probably what instigated the purchase of the first few comics. In fact, I think Sonic was the first comic book I bought, so right there I must have developed some loyalty.
As for the stories, they kinda hooked us with the same, basic idea as Star Wars: Huge, technologically superior, dominating, evil empire versus a small, ill-equipped band of ragtag heroes. There’s even a princess on the side of the rebels. The bad guy, Robotnik, betrayed the king to become the ruler, and drove everybody out. In the process he turned most of their loved ones, primarily Sonic’s only known living relative, his uncle, into mindless robots (since murder was a bit much for Sonic, and his fans until later in the series.) For all intents, and purposes, it was the same as your standard super hero comic.
I also liked the art a lot. The covers were nearly all drawn by Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante, and something about his style hooked me. He was my artistic god for a long time, and he would do the art for an entire comic every 25 issues, or something like that. After him came Jay Axer, whom I still hold in high regard.
May 19th, 2010 10:18 PM
For 50+ issues was better than recent Marvel stuff. It had great world building, some actually awesome villians and heroes, much better supporting cast than the games could hope for and Spaz. Spaz. Is. A. God. Exscuse me a sec while I rummage for covers. . .
http://www.kenpenders.com/knuckles/kn25l.jpg
bad quality
http://www.kenpenders.com/sonic/sss6l.jpg
Spider-man
http://www.newsarama.com/preview_images/marvelnew/dec08/whatifsmbb001_cov.jpg
and one of the ladies of Sonic, if you’re into that
http://www.kenpenders.com/sonic/sss11l.jpg
May 19th, 2010 10:22 PM
Oh man, issue 50… so epic… so very very epic. Easily my favorite, at least of the ones I can remember. It’s been so long.
May 19th, 2010 10:31 PM
Huh. Well, that Spider-Man cover is pretty cool…
May 19th, 2010 11:27 PM
Yeah, I didn’t even know he drew for Spider-Man. Definitely a pretty picture. Also, I would like to apologize for gumming up your Iron Man review with a discussion about Sonic the Hedgehog. Just a tad off topic.
May 19th, 2010 11:55 PM
No, not a problem. Interesting to see what different people like.