IRON MAN 2 review: no girls allowed

IRON MAN 2 review: no girls allowed

Apr 29

Julie Andrews suggests I start the very beginning (which is apparently a very good place to start), so I’ll do that:

Iron Man 2 starts off bad.

There’s an awkward opening scene establishing Mickey Rourke’s “Whiplash” character that comes off hideously awkward and unnecessary, which plunges quickly into a vomit-inducingly sexist scene involving various swooping close-ups of womens’ body parts as they gyrate in moody lighting and then — as if to top it all off — Jon Favreau himself (the film’s director) appears on screen as Tony Stark’s slave / assistant. What pretentiousness! thought I. What nerve!

After making a pretty naff first impression, Iron Man 2 eventually lurched into gear, but the movie I found myself in wasn’t at all familiar. Maybe my memories of the first flick are too vague, and maybe Terrence Howard’s forced removal and replacement subconsciously confused the heck out of me, but Iron Man 2 didn’t really feel like a sequel to begin with. Sure, Robert Downey Jr’s in this one, and he’s still a prick, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s here, and she’s still a bit prickly, but nothing really jived too well and I started wondering if Iron Man 2 was yanking my chain.

Then the action scenes started and I remembered why I was here: because Iron Man’s awesome. That’s really the long and short of it, and it’s the reason why we go to see his movies. Out of the suit he’s the kind of asshole we only dream of someday becoming, and in the suit he’s the kind of red and gold robot fellow whose toys — ahem, ACTION FIGURES — we used to play with as boys. If we were boys — I know I was one, at least once; 50/50 odds that you were, too.

Without this boyish awesomeness these movies would be ridiculous. You wouldn’t find a character like Tony Stark in a Serious Movie, because his personality and abilities are larger than life. Which is fine, if you like that kind of thing, but I couldn’t help but feel two things: a) this is a boys only club (no girls allowed!), and b) the movie would’ve been better served by a more rapid and less circuitous route to the boyish awesomeness.

To elaborate on point a), Jon Favreau must be some kind of chauvinist dog, because he takes every opportunity to objectify women (other than Gwyneth Paltrow). The vomit-inducing shots I mentioned above are one problem, but framing a shot with Scarlett Johanssen’s figure is another. I know a lot of people (read: men) don’t give two hoots about this, so I won’t repeat myself here, but bear in mind that Iron Man 2 is shamelessly sexist, and that this is a bad thing. Also Johanssen’s performance isn’t too crash hot. Just sayin’.

Point b) is pretty self-explanatory. There is a fantastic scene in which Whiplash makes himself known to the world at large, and while the scene is appropriately awesome (in a boyish way), it would’ve had even greater impact if we’d never seen Whiplash before. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the two scenes with Whiplash that are thrown into the first act before his big reveal could have been removed entirely. Then the ensuing scenes involving Whiplash would have a bit more mystery and confusion and — perhaps — tension to them that are lacking here.

Those are my two main gripes. Other than that, Iron Man 2 is an exemplary middle child: building on the first film while leaving the door wide open for a third. There’s even the customary Act 2 self-doubt and moral complexity you’d expect from a good Marvel film, but it’s not carried as far as it could be here, which brings me to my third main gripe (sorry): Tony Stark.

RDJ’s performance in the role is rock solid. He’s quick, sharp, unpredictable, impeccably groomed — but there’s something about Tony Stark that just bugs me. I don’t remember why he’s so rich, so I’ll accept that as a given; but how does he know how to build a high-intensity laser beam with his bare hands in a matter of hours? I didn’t realise he took advanced physics alongside his professional asshole-ism course. Of course, that’s just my personal ignorance talking, and comic book fanatics will lap this up like there’s no tomorrow, but for me there were a couple of things that were just a wee bit too implausible (which, in a comic book flick, says a lot).

Oh yeah, there’s also Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, possibly the most annoying character I’ve ever seen in a Marvel movie. Rockwell’s performance is fine, but the film cuts back to him a few too many times, and he becomes really annoying after a while. HINT: he’ll probably play a big part in Iron Man 3 and / or The Avengers.

Anyway that’s enough of the bad stuff, let’s talk about the good. The action scenes are still good, filled with richly-rendered robotic violence, but they’re all spoiled to some extent by the trailers. I hate the feeling you get when you’re half-way through a movie and you’re subconsciously ticking off scenes from the trailer that have already been shown and you realise that the best bit of the trailer is yet to come, and that it’s likely to be in the climax of the film. There should be a rule that trailers can only take footage from the first three reels of a film. Also, trailers shouldn’t be allowed to suck.

Also making a return appearance is Tony Stark’s mind-boggling futuristic super-advanced super-hero-only software technology, voiced by Paul Bettany, whereby he manipulates floating holograms with his bare hands. This is a strange thing to bring up in a review, I know, but it’s awesome. Science and technology play a vital role in Iron Man’s universe, and it’s cool to see them introduced and dealt with in such a hip way. Whether or not this tech will appear hip in 20 years is another matter entirely.

The script is good — I think. I mean, I didn’t consciously think “Hang on, what?” and I didn’t roll my eyes at any of the dialogue, which is a good sign, especially in a comic book movie. I have the feeling the script might have lost its way in the middle, where things get a bit muddled, but otherwise it gives the characters plenty to do without becoming overly predictable or ridiculous. The cinematography is similarly delightful: the nauseating aerial shots are shot in a realistic manner, which lends a bit of pizzazz to the dogfights peppered throughout the movie.

I wonder if superhero movies are in decline. There used to be a time — granted, I was only like 12 back then — when going to see the latest Spider-Man or X-Men movie meant rolicking action and good old-fashioned characters. I get that Tony Stark’s a more post-modern superhero, more of a playboy bully than a dweeby do-gooder, but that really robs Iron Man 2 of the warmth inherent in some of those previous films.

Nevertheless Iron Man 2 is a robust and polished exercise in comic bookery, but I still feel obliged to ask the ladies in the audience to come at the film with patience — lots and lots of patience — because sometimes men are idiots, and sometimes men like to relive their childhoods; in this case, Iron Man 2 is a spiffing, if sometimes perfunctory, amalgamation of both.

Iron Man 2 score

71/100