Iron Man 2 Cents

Iron Man was fun, albeit a little long. Go see it. You’ll enjoy it. I only had two peeves:

1.) Dear Gwyneth — if you really didn’t want to be in the movie, you shouldn’t have. It was painfully obvious you weren’t a team player. As one performer to another: when you’re not having fun, it shows. It’s not like you needed to be in the film — we geeks were all fine with Don Cheadle playing Terrence Howard’s role of Rhodey, and we would have welcomed a cute redheaded ingenue as much as we welcomed Scarlett Johansson’s thinly-poured-latex catsuit. Where there was a genuine affection for Stark from Pepper in the first film (an affection that saved his life), there was nothing but cold-shoulder antagonism in the sequel. When she finally does show some concern for Stark’s welfare, it’s almost too little too late. Stark must seriously have a thing for Pepper if he didn’t dump her after treating him like that…especially since she looks downright frumpy next to Scarlett. Maybe we should blame this on the writers? (A few other things could be…see peeve #2 for details.) Whatever the reason, I hope you got a boatload of cash. And that you got to keep all the fabulous gravity-defying stilettos.

2.) Dear Jon (Favreau) — if you have Sam Rockwell in your movie, you should USE HIM. Perhaps you didn’t get the memo about what a freaking amazing actor he is. Perhaps you have only seen him in his role as “Head Thug” in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Perhaps this is yet another flub we can blame on your poor, overworked, brain-fried writer. Or perhaps we can even blame this on Stan — I didn’t read the Iron Man comics, so I don’t know if Justin Hammer was really as smarmy and inept as he is portrayed in the film. What would have been MORE entertaining — and please forgive me, as this is the writer in me taking over — is if Hammer had been a true match (intelligence and charisma-wise) for Stark…as true a match as Ivan Vanko was for Iron Man. That way Stark would have been fighting on both fronts — his street persona and his superhero persona — and something might actually HAVE BEEN IN JEOPARDY. Nothing was in jeopardy in this film. Not even Pepper’s stilettos, when she is lifted into the air and whisked away before the bombs detonate (please refer back to peeve #1).

Again, I enjoyed the movie. It was a cold, windy day. I had a decent seat and nowhere else to be. Did I think it rocked as much as the first one? Not by a long shot. But as a sequel it’s passable. Thanks for a lovely afternoon.