Thoughts on Iron Man II

[breakinglight11]

Last night Jared and I saw Iron Man II. It was fun, and there was a lot of entertaining stuff, but about every ten minutes I saw something about which I had to declare, "I call bullshit." I enjoyed the movie, but it was not the second Iron Man that I wanted to see. 

I really like the character of Tony Stark, especially as played by Robert Downey, Jr. And I hate to say it, but I love how he's an enormous dick that still manages to be hot. And see, my favorite Tony Stark antagonist is Tony Stark. I find him most interesting when he's his own worst enemy. Basically the film I was hoping to see had that same Tony be successfully protecting the world but totally destroying his personal life, descending into alcoholism and acting progressively more reckless due to his growing arrogance and his fear for his life. I wanted him to be alienating Pepper with all his difficult behavior, the breaking point of which is being seduced by Black Widow, who was actually trying to infiltrate Stark Industries and help Whiplash, and that drives her to finally leave him and go to Happy, who I expected to be in the film for this purpose. I wanted him to be screwing up his life, and I wanted there to be consequences for it. There weren't really consequences for anything he did, even using the Iron Man suit while drunk, a moment which offended me probably more than it should. But nobody on the Earth should get away with playing with a weapon while intoxicated, and that kind of pissed me off. I call bullshit.

Then there was the very Walt Disney-style presentation of Howard Stark's city of tomorrow. I didn't mind that, but I did mind the very Da Vinci Code-like hiding of the new-element theory in the park model. Now, I totally buy that a scientist could theorize the existence of a new element before he has the technology to try and synthesize it, which later generations do. I believe that's even happened in real life science. But people leave these things in notebooks, they do not hide them cryptically in models for vanity theme parks. I call bullshit.

Did not enjoy Black Widow. Or maybe I shouldn't even call her that, because she didn't have anything in common with Black Widow except her real name. Maybe I would have enjoyed her more if I liked Scarlett Johansson (as either an actress or as eye candy) but I really don't. I found her character to be totally gratuitous. Basically, "Sexy girl. Sexy girl beats people up. Sexy girl looks sexy. Sexy girl changes in backseat of car in a scene so pornographically choreographed as to be absurd." And Tony is a complete dumbass for being a man in his position and not thinking, "Huh, this woman can do CRAZY MARTIAL ARTS even though she's supposed to be from THE LEGAL DEPARTMENT. SHE CLEARLY ISN'T A SPY, NOPE, NUH HUH." God, I wanted Pepper to be like, "If all the blood hadn't abandoned your brain right now, it might occur to you that that's a little suspicious!" 

I can't believe they didn't have her be villainous in any way. I kept waiting for her to betray them and help Vanko, but nope, never happened. Natasha Romanov was a Soviet double-agent in the comics. If they just wanted a sexy secret SHIELD agent, why did they use the Romanov character? Wasn't there some other character they could have had play that role? Maybe Sharon Carter, like Jared suggested? I call bullshit about pretty much every aspect of this character.

I wanted this movie to show Tony destroying everything that was really important to him. And then have the next movie be him putting it all back together. They could have even still had the last scene kept as it was, because I like the idea that Tony manages to publically save everyone while still having ruined his life. But I felt they could have made a much deeper, more believable movie if they hadn't just let the comic-book-logic run wild and let Tony get away with whatever he wanted. He's a douchebag by nature and we enjoy him that way, but douchebags usually get some sort of repercussions for their behavior.

Comments

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I'd love it if they did an arc over several movies and actually dared end a movie on an Empire Strikes Back-style cliffhanger or down note.

I think a lot of this story was limited by the studio's burning desire to have not just sequels, but entire spin-off series...there's no WAY they'll allow Tony Stark to change too much, for fear of messing with the alchemy that made the first movie so popular.

[morethings5.livejournal.com]

While I agree with pretty much everything you say here (even regarding Black Widow, despite the fact that I think Scarlett Johansson is ridiculously hot), you have to be practical and realistic about one thing: there is *no way in hell* that the conclusion of Iron Man 2 could ever possibly have been "Tony Stark ruins his life because he was irresponsible. Maybe he'll fix it next time." It simply would not sell as a mainstream movie, ever. Honestly it would probably be a pretty terrible film in general. It relies entirely on the faith (which I'm sure is common among readers of comic series) that issues will be resolved in a later installation of the franchise, which is basically never something a film audience is willing to do, except in rare instances like, say, Lord of the Rings, in which everyone knew from the get-go that there would be three films and that the story wouldn't resolve until the last one. I definitely agree that Stark should have had to deal with the repercussions of his actions in a more severe way, but the recovery from those repercussions definitely needs to occur in the same film.