The Marvelous Marvel Rewatch (Now Playing: Avengers: Infinity War)

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Doc755 said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

Watched Iron Man 2.  (I think weekdays are better Marvel movie days for me.)   Anyway, this post contains lots of spoilers so don't read if you haven't seen the movie yet.

Plusses:

Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man.  I always enjoy seeing him portray Iron Man, and this movie is no different.  I do have complaints against this movie, but I can't fault Robert Downey Jr. in any way.

The plot about the palladium core poisoning Iron Man's blood was interesting.  It was definitely the most interesting part of the plot to me.

 The scene where Black Widow fights infiltrates Justin Hammer’s HQ is cool.  (Unfortunately Iron Man doesn’t get actions scenes that are nearly this cool.)

The most interesting parts as a whole for this movie involved how it expanded the MCU as a whole: introduces Black Widow, first time Rhodey becomes War Machine, we learn that Howard Stark helped found Shield.  One really cool thing is seeing Senator Sterns (Gary Shandling).  I remember his character from Winter Soldier, but I forgot he was in Iron Man 2 until I rewatched it.  Now that I know his role in Winter Soldier, I see him in a different light in this movie.  That is a nice touch on Kevin Feige's part (who is the one paying attention to continuity stuff).

Minuses:

Weak villains following a weak plot.  I do not believe that these villains are threatening, referring to both Ivan Vanko and Justin Hammer.  When people complain about Marvel villains, I am starting to think they are mostly referring to Iron Man villains.  Loki, Red Skull, Baron Zemo, Vulture…these are all villains I really like.  Iron Man has really sucky villains, and this movie is the worst culprit.  The only real threat to Iron Man is the blood poisoning which is why it is the most interesting part of the plot.

I really hate Ivan Vanko.  This may seem like the same as point #1, but I cannot overstate how much I really hate Vanko as a character.  He just has a couple of whips.  Iron Man has flight, super strength, lasers, an AI, etc....  Vanko should not even be the slightest challenge for Iron Man.  The fact that they show him as a challenge during the racing scene is just so irritating to me.  I’m like, “Hey guy, just fly up in the air a few feet and shoot him!”  Also Vanko has a dumb motivation.  He wants to ruin the Stark family name, which is kind of weak, but then he never gets even remotely close to doing this.  Everyone loves Iron Man all of the time throughout this movie except Hammer and Sterns who already hated him.

The writing for this movie is exceptionally weak.  For example, how does Vanko know that Tony Stark is going to be in the formula 1 race?  Pepper and Black Widow are surprised, but somehow Vanko knows exactly where to go.

 

Overall, I can only recommend Iron Man 2 to people who want to experience the whole MCU (like us).  The movie expands the overall MCU plotline in interesting ways, but it cannot really stand up on its own.

4/10

 

   

I’ll be adding my own thoughts once I watch it (probably Saturday) but wanted to clarify that the suit he wears in that first altercation with Vanko at the race is not capable of flight. This was possibly a trade off for its mobility. It’s not clear in the film. So the mistake is totally understandable. That fight scene did kind of work for me because it was about Tony’s vulnerability outside the suit. The tension comes from getting to the suit. Once he puts it on, he handily defeats Vanko. It’s a nice comparison with the scene in Iron Man 3 where Tony doesn’t have his suit and he needs to use his own skills to get inside the Mandarin’s compound

I did not get this detail at all.  Did they mention this in the movie, or is this something a person would only know from comic books?  The formula 1 scene is my least favorite part of the movie, although it may be more the director's fault for not clearly communicating the important details.