iRon Mayan Too

And so summer begins, not with a bang, but with a whimper, in the sequel to the ridiculously big hit film Iron Man, which re-energised an already awesome Robert Downey Jr. with star appeal like no other and brought a fantastic, wealthy with character, quirk and intrigue Marvel hero, and his power suit, to the masses.

Unfortunately the film was rather boring, in between the moments where Downey got to be Downey, mostly lots of ad-libbed parts, it was a poor attempt at an origin story where the pacing was off, most of the characters were 1 dimensional at best, and the villain had less screen-time than a SHIELD agent who doesn't even do anything in any of these films, 4 hours of fuck all.

And somehow in the second part we have even less of a villain than Jeff Bridges, between the underused but brilliant Sam Rockwell as charismatic business rival Justin Hammer and Mickey Rourke's barely Russian Whiplash, who spends most of his time locked away looking at Rockwell, growling, then getting back to work, only to escape at the end for no reason other than to have another villain in a power suit fight. Yawn.

It isn't helped that Tony's second act motivations are SHIELD agent Clark Gregg is housesitting him as he has to find a power alternative or something his father will lead him to, his father who is dead from the smoking and whiskey consumption from his time on Mad Men, and Sam Jackson spends 5 minutes sitting around doing fuck all.

In fact, the only person who does anything in this film seems to be Jon Favreau. For some reason the director's small part in Iron Man became his best friend role in the sequel, Terrence Howard passed, Don Cheadle accepted, so he does nothing once more, clearly Favreau wanted Downey to have a buddy, so he decided "Hey, I act, why not" And let me tell you Mr. Favreau, there's about 5 million reasons why not, most of them end with "Cos you're a fucking shitty actor" sir.
For no reason he has not one, not two but three moments where he oogles at Scarlett Johanson, whose sole purpose in this film is to walk around busty and kick a few people. Great character motivation, did you workshop that when you were watching her undress Jon?

So, the rest, well, Paltrow is promoted, but her relationship with Tony is as two people who talk slightly, until a kiss at the end, there's no chemistry, there's nothing in fact, it's just two unlikeable people talking, and yes, Downey is unlikeable, dull, fast talking about nothing, useless in this. For a film about him, it doesn't focus much on him, has 5 strands to follow that are inconsequential, uninteresting and ultimately are forgotten when the CGI hits out.

The film would have worked better had it stopped being a Marvel advertises Captain America, The Avengers and Thor film (A painful Captain America shield cameo used as a gag), and became a film about Sam Rockwell and Downey Jr. as business rivals, leaving the metal on metal yawnfest for another film. A smart, Wall Street meets Changing Lanes, only funnier and lighter kind of film would have worked infinitely better than this mish mash from execs of what looks cool, where the characters should be, which, by the way, most of them act like the plot dictates, not as humans, and eventually the stupid 10 minute action fest that is as uninventive as it is undeserving.

Once again the CGI is average at best, metal looks plasticy, the disembodied faces of Cheadle, Downey and Rourke are weird, a moment were Rourke, as a cool guy, doesn't look as he walks from an explosion on the Monaco grand prix has two cars explode behind him, or, rather, him on a chroma keyed moment, where the cars are about 10 times his size, or closer than him, either way, physics lost that battle. Why oh why can't special effects look anywhere near as good as it did 10 years ago, when the characters become suits, it's painfully obvious it's not even close to practical, hell, the materials don't even reflect or react like they're in the same environment as the backdrop.

So, what's the basic premise? Well, Rourke's father was betrayed by Tony's father, and so the hatred runs through this child's life, in Moscow, so much so that the arc reactor template he design with Stark senior is implemented to fight Stark, once on the radar Rockwell buys his work so that at the Stark Expo, or weapons-fest New York, he can come in and prove that he's better than Tony. At a congressional hearing, by C-Span, whose graphics are on the CINEMA SCREEN for well over 2/3rds of the 10 minute scene, Gary Shandling quizzes the weaponry basis of Iron Man, and Stark embarrasses all nations and Hammer by showing he's the best.

And so, 2 hours later, there's a fight.

Oh yeah, and in the middle people talk and stuff, about nothing, building to nothing.
Can I say fuck more?

So, yeah, it's 2 hours with an Easter Egg about Thor's hammer in a crater in New Mexico at the end, not worth staying for, if, that is, you actually bothered buying a ticket for this dreck in the first place.

For a film so pent up on ADD craziness and had a mellow, joyful, if not at all memorable predecessor, it seems to want to be serious after some painful 'comic' moments, and the stupid robot arm things again, even JARVIS is only used to explain the plot, as most things are said 3-4 times so the kids watching, watching a PG-13, 13!, film can understand the intricate details of this bullshit.

You know, one thing that bugged me, in Minority Report they had screens to work with when using the touch screen flashy computer things, in Iron Man 2 Tony has the stuff projected around his workshop, projected on nothing, how does the image know when to stop? Someone? Anyone? Unobtanium?

Anyway, I divert back to my original point, I went in with really low expectations and hated it, this is Wolverine bad.
2/10 (Purely because Sam Rockwell and that swinging thing were entertaining to watch) ((That swinging thing isn't a way of saying Jon Favreau's belly))