(no subject)
I want to say I enjoyed Iron Man 2 mostly because for the first time ever I was watching a Marvel movie in its full universe. Hulk started the ball going, but this took it to a new level.
It was great how they seeded it throughout the movie with comments of stuff going on in the Southwest, which I took for some Hulk action. (I totally thought the crater was going to have Ed Norton in tattered pants, btw, but was pleasantly surprised to see Mjolnir. So was everyone else. That bit brought the loudest cheer in the theater the entire movie.)
I'm hoping they'll take the opportunity to recreate the Sword in the Stone routine that they opened the recent run of Thor with in which people from all around show up to see if they can pick up the hammer (for non-Thor geeks, only Thor and those whom Odin deems worthy of the Power of Thor may even lift Mjolnir.) At some point, Don Blake shows up and pushes through the crowd, scoops up the hammer and kra-KOOM!
I'm a bit disappointed that a few of the actors didn't really bring their A-game to this. Gwyneth and her whole storyline felt a little tossed in there and she didn't sparkle like she did in the first one.
Cheadle did pretty good really following up the work that Terrence laid out. The character was rather seamless and felt like the same character from the original.
I couldn't decide on Sam Rockwell. He either just felt so out of place or that was brilliant acting. I'm going with the second because what he did was play a guy who's trying to be as awesome as Tony Stark but clearly failing and how he did that was by trying to be as awesome as Robert Downey, Jr. Clever acting, but really his character felt a little tired after a while.
Not sure who Mickey Rourke was supposed to be. Anton Vanko, Ivan's father, was the original Crimson Dynamo in the comics and I'd hoped we'd see Ivan cannibalizing a CD suit for parts for his Whiplash rig.
But then he puts on a Dynamo-ish suit when he becomes Blacklash at the end of the movie, so....
I'm hoping that we're going to see the plot of power suit escalation return in the next movie with Russia rolling out its Titanium Man, although I'm told 3 is going to be Mandarin. Which is good, it NEEDS to be Mandarin.
One final curious question. Tony promises to Nick that someone else will suit up as Iron Man in the Avengers in a deal to have Stern do the medal ceremony.
As the only men in the armor have ever been Tony, Happy and Rhodey, who will be that Iron Man?
I get the feeling its going to be secretly Tony, pulling a fast one on Nicholas?
