Iron Man 2: He’s Good for Peace Consulting
Yesterday I watched Iron Man 2 with a good friend of mine, and only a day later, after chewing over the film a bit more, we both (separately, mind you) arrived at the same conclusion: The more we thought about it, the less we liked the sequel. For me, if a movie doesn’t sit quite well, and I can’t figure out straight away my impression, then I maybe need to sleep on it or drink some coffee or take a shower and think about it. Other times, the very act of writing helps me figure out what I like and don’t like about a movie or comic or video game, et cetera.
My point is, if you weren’t gushing over Iron Man 2 and you can’t figure out exactly why, maybe a line or two of my review with strike a chord:
Two years ago, Robert Downey Jr. charmed audiences with Tony Stark’s smarmy playboy attitude. Jeez, we’re chumps for assholes, as long as those assholes look good wearing Jaeger-LeCoultre and several flirtatious women. If he hadn’t endured months of terrorist torture, developed a knack for responsibility and peace and other heartwarming attributes, and came within minutes of dying horribly, Stark would have gleefully trampled egos like bubble wrap for the entire movie. Thank God those terrorists nurtured some character in him, right? Screenwriter Justin Theroux mulled over these various elements and decided that the “dying horribly” part was most endearing of all because that’s what he ran with for the popular movie’s sequel. And ran … and ran.
Read the full review now at RadNerd.
Another thing: I was just having a conversation about Mickey Rourke the other day. Supposedly he was damn good looking in his younger days, but drugs, wrestling, plastic surgery, and other fun activities zapped all the physical magnetism right out of him. But hey, everything has a silver lining, right? Now he gets to portray fucked-up Russian villains. And man, does he know his fucked-up Russians.
Rourke and Kim Basinger, who both starred in Nine 1/2 Weeks (1986)
