Monday, May 10, 2010

Iron Man 2

I saw Iron Man 2 this weekend.  I give it a 3 star rating out of 5.  Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) was cute, as usual, but the rest of the movie was hopeless.  Villain Ivan whatsit (Mickey Rourke)--a big disappointment.  Why do the bad guys have to look so ugly?  Granted he was in hiding but this guy is building something complicated that is sure to destroy the world and he must have shopped for the ingredients.  He cannot find a comb? How did he get the gold to put between his teeth anyway?  He didn't have gold teeth--his regular teeth had a sort of gold border to them.  I looked carefully.

What was wrong with the movie was that the pièce de résistance was introduced too early --the main gadget, the electrical whips that Tony Stark had to battle against made its appearance in the second scene.  The movie could have started with minor inventions that fail, and then

voilà

bring this up after a lot of tinkering MacGyver style.  But no, we saw them on the Monaco race track and then it was ho-hum when they were brought back at the end of the movie.

The Iron Man 2's take off (for flight) was a curious exercise.  He would keep his arms straight and stiff by the side with the palms horizontal and do an utterly fairy dance before the boosters whatever launched him into space.  What was that about? And Natasha (Scarlett Johansson), can the name be more spy-like, is quite comical with her choreographed fight scenes.  After punching out each guy she would pause to give a Charlie's Angels kind of pose.

This movie is a lesson in you cannot have too much of a good thing. Hundreds and thousands of these Iron Men invade the screen towards the end only to die in the Unisphere Globe in Flushing, Queens NY. Built for a World Fair, the globe remains a symbol of creativity.

Why are superheroes such lonely, misunderstood people?  Tony Stark was no exception.  He felt his dad denied him his love and thank goodness Stark Sr. always had his video camera focused on him--we could prove junior wrong right away and in this movie without having to drag on this theme to the sequel.  Anyway, at least this movie had its brilliant flashes of humor which is why I gave it 3 out of 5.

Who the heck was this Nick (Samuel Jackson)  guy? Turns out, there was a scene at the end of the credits of the first movie where they introduced him?  I wish someone had told me that.  I was smarter this time.  I sat till the end of the movie and sure enough there was this little extra scene which was clear as mud. But that is for Iron Man 3.


2 comments:

hotchipps said...

Hey Chitti! Mee too watched the movie on Mother's Day. I couldn't help but laughing my way through it. I somehow have been having a vague feeling about such flicks off late which gets stronger each time I watch a Hollywood flick. A feeling that these people must be getting influenced too much by Tollywood - Balaiah, RaviTeja and Mohan Babu.

There was this movie I watched a couple of months earlier. It was also a sequel of an earlier version. It was about a structure made out of machines supposed to be a robot or something, but then this strange thing ends up fighting against the not so good robots and has a soft corner for all those who have been destroyed by the bad robots.

I spent about 20 minutes laughing over it though people around me were watching it in awe. Some movie man. And now after watching this I am sure, either the Hollywood people are too much into Indian (Tollywood) influence, or they are going nuts.

agastya71 said...

Hey Priyam:
I took a Sick day to go watch this movie. I must say it was enjoyable. that being said, the movie does not lack in its plot holes and a bad finale.
First off, Nick Fury (Sam Jackson who was awesome as Mace Windu in Star Wars) was indeed introduced at the end of the movie in Iron Man (after you patiently sit thru' the credits). Whatsherface Johansson was another character introduced in this movie with the hopes of spawning a movie a la Wolverine (from Xmen). The ending of this movie had *Spoiler alert* the introduction to another Marvel comic Hero "Thor"... that was the hammer in the front of that shot. The movie "Thor" directed by Kenneth Branagh is to be released next year along with Captain America(who was alluded to in the Iron Man-2 movie, The Shield that is used to prop up Tony Stark's mini Hadron Collider)

and now I need my Bird, So I can go be creative and make a fusion reactor in my basement.