By James Potter
Well last night was the night… Last night, or this morning depending on how much of an asshole you are, was the release of the one and only movie I was looking forward to seeing this year. Last night was the release of Iron Man 2! I gotta be honest, though, and say that I was nervous and skeptical about seeing it and with good cause. Movie sequels made by people who are under the thumb of Hollywood usually tend to make movies that just focus on bringing in cash and not actually make a movie with substance; Spiderman 3 anyone? However, some sequels are pretty good and build upon what the first movie established; Dark Knight? So now you know how I felt going into this movie. However, coming out of this movie I was not confused or deep in thought as to how I felt about Iron Man 2. When I walked out after the movie I flipped off the screen and left with my head held low. Iron Man 2 left me thoroughly disappointed.
This next paragraph will sum up my feelings without spoilers but the rest will be business as usual.
Thinking back to it now what really stuck out as annoying was that everyone bickered nonstop like they were all Tony Stark and how everything was over the top with commercializing. Commercializing is not the best term for it but at the moment I can’t think of anything better. The editing of some scenes was like I was actually watching tv and that bothers me. To top it all off everyone had their one liners. Even Fury was heard to say “I got my eye on you.” Give me a fucking break! My palms struck my face many times.
“If this were a TV show I would have changed the channel long ago.”
The acting from almost all parts was really annoying but was most bothersome from Sam Rockwell himself. I don’t find Sam to be a bad actor but even good actors can be plagued by poor writing. Sam’s character Justin Hammer is a failing inventor but is backed by politicians because he sucks their cocks and promises awesome shit. It isn’t until after one of our villains Whiplash attacks Tony with his own technology that Hammer sees his chance to be better than “Anthony” and build himself some Iron Man armor. This takes us to the worst possible dialogue when Hammer realized that Whiplash built drones instead of human armor; Hammer, confused, tries to get someone to put on a drone’s head to make the point that no man could wear this armor…that scene took 10mins. I’d rather watch a retard get placed into a round room and try to piss in a corner…
The bad acting/writing wasn’t limited to just Sam Rockwell, though. Scarlett Johansson donned the red hair and took on the part of The Black Widow… poorly. Her talking scenes were boring and left me feeling sad because she didn’t sport the Russian accent. Why? Well I guess because the villain is Russian and them Russians are evil in this here movie so we can’t have a good person be Russian too. Or… Ms. Johansson is a bad actress and can’t hold an accent. Nevertheless she was boring. When she put on the tight fitting clothes and kicked ass I was entertained but that was it. Don Cheadle did nothing to inspire his character and when he shared the scene with Scarlett we could actually see flies acting circles around them. And I’ll just conclude this with Sam Jackson was Sam Jackson, he didn’t strike me as a leader.
The action in the movie was a redeeming quality but action sequences were few and far between, to make them worse they were slowed down with pointless shit! In the beginning of the films climactic ending we see Jon Faverou help Black Widow by getting into a long and boring fist fight with one guard while Widow goes Hit Girl on about 10 people, which was awesome. Iron Man, though, was worried about innocent people getting hurt so he had all the bad drone robots chase him around the crowd for awhile. When War Machine finally enters the battle and absolutely kicks ass!!! But not to be outdone Iron Man busts out some new toys and ends the action.
The one liners really bother me because it just feels like everyone is trying to be as quick witted and insultingly sarcastic as Robert Downey/Tony. Agent What’s His Face drops the doozy “If you try to escape I will taze you and watch Super Nanny while you drool into the carpet.” /facepalm. I would also like to add in the annoying category (annoying cuz I wish it wasn’t so compressed) was the use of montages! Several really interesting scenes are chopped to pieces and played in a minute instead of 10… Finally all the tech in Tony’s house was way too overboard; Why? Because it was awesome in the first movie so it had to be expanded upon wayyy more than was necessary.
I left out a lot of the movie, plots, and sequences because, despite it all, this was a summer blockbuster and I do think that most people will like it for its surface value which is action. It’s not a movie that I wouldn’t recommend to everyone like Indy 4 but I wouldn’t tell everyone to see it like I have with Kick Ass. This movie will make plenty of money and for its cost I think most will enjoy it. I was fortunate enough to see it for free but sometimes, for me, free is too expensive.
