Iron Man was a successful and very good film that adapted one of comics most popular characters, quite obviously, Iron Man, and pitted him against the terrorist organisation The Ten Rings, and later his work associate, Obidiah Stane...in a giant robot. The film was greatly overshadowed by The Dark Knight, which was another film about a multi-billionaire who wears armour and fights evil. Though let's be honest, Dark Knight kicked ass. Iron Man was still how I'd say you SHOULD make a superhero movie, the kind with flying and robots, that is.
So when they said, 'We're making Iron Man 2,' we were hyped as hell...Then I found out that Whiplash was the villain. Whiplash? You mean one of Iron Man's minor villains? And then I found out he looked like this...
Russian Cyborg He-Man...with electrical whips for hands...Um, no. You want to know why that so weird? Watch the Nostalgia Critic's review of Masters of the Universe.
So then I went to see the film after writing my rant a few days ago, and enjoyed the experience. Until about halfway through. Halfway through, they forgot that they were making an action movie. Nothing but talking. The original film had character development and was interesting. I'll tell you right now that these scenes would have been fine in a non-action movie, but they just kept going on. It got better towards the end, but even then...the final fight with Whiplash was so goddamn anti-climatic. That's really bad, cos the fight with Iron Monger in the first film has been regarded as one of the best superhero fights in cinema. Maybe this was the problem because the fight didn't happen in the air, which would've been cool. We had a chase in the air, but not an actual fight.
Here's a strange thing, in the original, it was mostly talk and some action, but that was fine, we had enough plot to keep us excited before that. Here we just had more talking. And let me tell you at this very moment that Tony and Pepper's talk on the plane in the TRAILER was more romantic and interesting than the entirety of their interaction in the film. Every time they talked, they would chatter on at the same time, trying to out talk the other. This wasn't a problem, but it kept going. It stopped being funny the minute you were trying to do it when important stuff happened!
But here's the weird thing, Iron Man was believed to not have enough action, so sequel was promised to be pretty much all action, and there was too much talking. Transformers recieved complaints that the robots didn't get enough character development, so the second one promised to flesh out the characters, and it was NOTHING BUT FIGHTING!
The film also has moments of what I call, Anti-Epic. So, how do we introduce the awesome that is War Machine? Tony succumbs to alcoholism and needs a replacement of course! Wait...no, that didn't happen. Instead, Tony gets drunk on his birthday, and on the suggestion of Black Widow, gets in the Iron Man suit. Though this proves to be a hit at the party, he starts blowing stuff up (to much applause) and Rhodey needs to stop him using the Mark II armour. So War Machine makes his cinematic debut trying to stop his friend making an ass of himself. Needless to say, despite the stupid set up, awesomness ensues.
And Nick Fury. When I think of Nick Fury, I think of a manipulative jerk, and a massive badass. Neither of those aspects showed up. In fact, for a character designed to BE Samuel L. Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson didn't do that good of a job portraying him. Again, with the Anti-Epic, we meet him and discover Black Widow's identity...At. A. Donut. Shop. Really Favreau? A Donut shop?
To make a long story short, the film just felt like padding to tie us over to the Avengers film, which it shouldn't have been. It was however, hilarious...a bit too hilarious. I think that mixing comedy and action is fine, but this film took it a bit too far. There were also multiple CMoA's, but not as many as the first one (referred to some as a CMoA in Iron Man's career). The hook for the next step in the Avengers saga was pretty awesome though, but I won't give it away.
Also I read that Joss Whedon is going to direct Thor of The Avengers.
Also again, Stan Lee's cameo was WAY too short. For shame.
I agree completely.
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