Tom Reviews "Iron Man 2" DVD

Tom's Corner:

Iron Man 2
(2010, Jon Favreau, Director)



Well, here we are with another superhero movie. We all saw the ads (except you, stereotypical guy living in a cave...which leads me to my next point: how does cave guy have internet access? He lives in a likely filthy cave. Anyway...) for this movie. Crazy Mickey Rourke playing Ivan Vanko, known in the comics (in a story shoehorned in to sorta kinda justify the character in the movie) as Whiplash. Robert Downey Jr. bringing back his wonderful portrayal of Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, with a charmingly soused insouciance. You gotta wonder how many hours of “research” Downey put into playing a drunken playboy. I kid, I kid, those days are behind him now, remembered only by most of us and hundreds of arrest photographs. Anyway, on with the show.

I've never been a huge Iron Man fan. Sure, I've got about 75-100 issues of it here or there, but it's never been a must-buy for me. However, I've always loved the original Whiplash, Mark Scarlotti, who, armed with an electric whip...fought a man encased in armor. He actually was victorious in about one fight (his first), but lost the next because (GASP!) the guy in armor got THICKER armor. Setting yourself up to fail that much just reveals so many psychological issues, huh? They came out in later years...as evidenced by this here costume. Kinky, huh? Later he was beaten to death by Iron Man's temporarily sentient armor (PLEASE don't ask). But this new guy is Russian. His character is unrelated to the previous Anton Vanko, AKA Crimson Dynamo (an armored Russian from the Cold War). So there's your villain backstory, really an excuse for me to make fun of a guy in a leather mask who is not only fictional, but dead and fictional.

So, in the movie, there is one major plothole I'd like to address. Why the HELL doesn't Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau's character) have a gun? He's supposed to be some sort of combination bodyguard limo driver, right? After he slams a limo into Vanko, he could've blown his unarmored brains all over the hood and been a hero. After all Vanko, did just kill or at least attempt murder on a few race car drivers (though if they were NASCAR, who would've cared? But I digress...)

Anyways, aside from that, I enjoyed the movie. It has everything a big ole summertime blow-em-up paint by numbers is supposed to have, plus some in-jokes to appease the comic fans. Plus, Don Cheadle begins the adventures of War Machine, which COULD get a spin-off. Plus that scene after the credits....

What? I'm not going to tell you what it was. Watch it fanboy, and enjoy. It will please Iron Man fans, and action movie fans.

- Tom