New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Light the fanboy signal!

Kim Hollis: For those of you who have seen it, what did you think of Iron Man 2?

Josh Spiegel: As I alluded earlier, I thought Iron Man 2 was a lot of fun. I would say that its biggest issue was the biggest issue the first Iron Man had: not enough time with the main supervillain. Here, that's caused by Tony Stark facing off against Justin Hammer and Ivan Vanko, but it's a problem I didn't have much trouble getting over. Downey is, as always, a blast to watch on screen, and his face-offs with Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke were great. I was also impressed with Scarlett Johannson (whose big action scene garnered applause in my audience), and Downey's chemistry with Gwyneth Paltrow remained strong. I know some people criticized the seeming emphasis on building up the Avengers storyline, but as a non-comic book reader, I wasn't really that thrown by it, nor did I feel like there was too much Avengers, not enough Iron Man/Tony Stark. So...yeah, big success for me, and I'm ready for Iron Man 3 (and Thor, and Captain America, and The Avengers).

Michael Lynderey: It was basically passable - a "B". It's not a bad movie, but it really pales in comparison to the first one, and the story isn't as fluid or engrossing. Rourke was good but underused, Paltrow and Downey still had some chemistry, but the Johansson character seemed especially puzzling - there didn't seem to be much of a point in having Black Widow in the film. From the POV of a summer movie watcher, I'd also say there wasn't enough action (something I frankly also thought was true of the first film).





Shalimar Sahota: The potential for a darker sequel was there ("The device that's keeping you alive is also killing you,"), and yet it goes the opposite direction and proves to be a fun installment that just about delivers what one now expects from an Iron Man film. Although it's not a successor, it still comes out looking good. I'm kinda with Michael, though, in that both the Iron Man films could have done with a bit more action (the final confrontation with Vanko is over before it's begun). Maybe action is something Favreau prefers to keep in short bursts.

Kim Hollis: I found it to be very enjoyable, much more so than I was even anticipating. Vanko was a terrific villain - no monologues, no warnings. He just shows up and is prepared to kill the man he perceives to be his enemy without any kind of explanation. That's how a bad guy should behave (unless he's completely unhinged like the Joker). Downey is always fantastic and I enjoyed his scenes with Paltrow, Cheadle and Favreau. My only (very, very small) complaint is that I felt the action was overly noisy and kind of blurry - very similar to Transformers/Transformers 2 in that way. I would have liked it to be a bit more crisp, though I realize that's challenging to achieve.

Continued:       1       2       3       4