The Grand Marvel Rewatch: Iron Man 2

Face front, true believers! Welcome to the next astonishing addition to “The Grand Marvel Rewatch,” designed to get us all sufficiently amped up for Captain America: Civil War, which comes out May 6, 2016. Each Wednesday, The Cinema King casts his eye back upon the twelve films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and offers five salient observations about the caliber of the films and the way they might play into Marvel’s latest installment in America’s favorite franchise.

Today’s fantastic feature film takes us to 2010 for Iron Man 2, our first sequel and the only MCU film to feature prominently a cockatoo.

1. Better than its reputation. Iron Man 2 is usually ranked among the MCU’s lowest points (it has the third lowest ranking on Rotten Tomatoes, ahead of The Incredible Hulk and Thor: The Dark World), but there’s still plenty of fun to be had here. As before, Robert Downey, Jr., is the big attraction here, beginning with a giggle-inducing opener in which Tony Stark makes an appropriately dramatic entrance, extols his own virtues, and in a wonderful bit of metacommentary applauds himself and says, “Oh, it’s good to be back!” With RDJ on-screen it certainly is. 
2. On the other hand, however... There is a chunk of Iron Man 2 that is astonishingly boring. You’ll remember this as the moment right near the end of Act Two, when both Tony and Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) are engaged in some high-tech shenanigans in their own montages. Maybe it’s just that I’ve seen these movies a thousand times by now, but there’s a feeling of treading water while there’s so much other interesting stuff going on in the movie. The film recovers in time for the climax, but I had the distinct feeling of not missing much if I had to get up for more popcorn. (You bet your arc reactor I was noshing.) 
3. The cast explodes as the universe expands. It might be to the detriment of the main plot, but Iron Man 2, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe takes an enormous leap forward with a closer look at SHIELD, a peek into the past of Tony’s father Howard, and the introduction of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). While these are all fascinating additions in hindsight, deployed to much greater effect later in the MCU, here these beats feel a little like intrusions, corporate presences without narrative arcs. The MCU has more successfully navigated that line between franchised product and standalone entertainment than Iron Man 2 might lead one to believe.
4. New Rhodey. I like Terrence Howard as much as the next man, but it’s really hard to imagine anyone other than Don Cheadle as War Machine. The film hangs a delightful lampshade on the casting change with Rhodey’s opening line, “Look, it’s me. I’m here. Deal with it.” But it ends up not being a big deal because Cheadle has fantastic charisma with RDJ, brings the critically palpable enthusiasm for the role, and fits into the suit in a way that is difficult to define. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Rhodes pops up in Captain Marvel (assuming he makes it out of Civil War alive), based on the relationship he has with Carol Danvers in the comics.
5. Continuity detritus. It’s hard to say how much of this stuff is planned out in advance and how much is improvised, but there’s a surprising amount of retrospective continuity that ends up making Iron Man 2 more enjoyable almost by accident. Agent Coulson’s (Clark Gregg) discovery of the Captain America shield prototype makes wonderful sense, given the fanboy devotion we discover in The Avengers. Then there’s Senator Stern (Garry Shandling), whose dogged pursuit of the Iron Man technology squares nicely with the character development we get during his cameo in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. At the same time, however, there’s a question to be answered about Howard Stark – what turns him from the carefree playboy (Dominic Cooper) of Agent Carter into the sobered Disneyesque futurist (John Slattery) we meet in this film? It’s all connected... and tracing out those connections is half the fun.

There’s so much more to be said about Iron Man 2, so be sure to check out my original review. Join me in the Grand Marvel Rewatch over the coming weeks, and hit the comments to share your thoughts about the MCU. And don’t forget to tune in next Wednesday for the next installment, in which we take a closer look at 2011’s Thor. Excelsior!

Iron Man 3 (2013)

It’s a brave new world, folks.  We’re post-Avengers and entering solidly into what’s been called “Phase 2” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  And with a new director at the helm of the centerpiece franchise, how does Iron Man fare against cinema’s greatest enemy – the dreaded threequel?

Come on, it’s Robert Downey, Jr.  Of course it’s fantastic.

Iron Man 3 picks up after The Avengers, with a PTSD Tony Stark (RDJ) tinkering with his metal men in lieu of sleeping.  The suits are all quite fantastic, but Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is worried, especially after a few close encounters with empty suits.  Speaking of empty suits, blast from the past Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) arrives at Stark Enterprises with an offer that’s too dangerous to be good – hacking into the human brain to augment natural genetics.  And when Tony Stark calls out top terrorist The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), the Invincible Iron Man finds himself vulnerable and pondering the viability of his very existence.

It’s heavy stuff, vaguely reminiscent of the rock-bottom approach of The Dark Knight Rises.  But make no mistake – RDJ and new writer/director Shane Black maintain all the fun that ought to be the governing spirit of an Iron Man film.  Even the panic attack sequences aren’t deadly serious, deflated by RDJ’s speedy comedic delivery and the script’s wise refusal to submit to cliché; case in point, Tony Stark’s second-act encounter with a young child who helps him out.  It’s an initial eye-roll, but our incredulity is assuaged once we realize that Stark refuses to “learn a lesson” from the kid and indeed willfully disregards the boy’s guilt-trip backstory in favor of a sandwich.

It’s a credit to Black that the film doesn’t feel tonally different from its two Jon Favreau-helmed predecessors.  In fact, Iron Man 3 is equally consistent with the last Black/RDJ team-up, 2005’s brilliant Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.  It’s not just the Christmas setting or the narration (which pays off beautifully in the incredible post-credits sequence), but it’s a consistency of tone, of snappy dialogue, of confident fun that runs through both films.

I can’t emphasize enough how much of this is thanks to another fabulous central performance by RDJ; in fact, most of the other roles are essentially cameos, though no one drops the ball in their smaller parts.  (It’s a shame, though, that we don’t get more Pepper, since her scene in The Avengers was among the best.)  Our two big villains here, Pearce and Kingsley, are right at home in the trappings of a comic book film, though comics fans may wrinkle their nose at liberties taken with each character (Pearce’s role is bigger than Killian’s ever was, while the Mandarin’s presence is reduced).  As Killian, Pearce is reminiscent of Sam Rockwell’s turn as Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2, but without the schlock and quirkiness; Aldrich Killian is deadly menacing, a near-perfect match for Tony Stark (though I still think Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane was the best nemesis).  As for Kingsley, his Mandarin isn’t your granddaddy’s Oriental wizard; updated for the film as the new face of terrorism, Kingsley brings in his trademark any-ethnicity-goes approach and drawls out threats that downright drip doom.

And as War Machine/Iron Patriot, Don Cheadle gets more action sequences than last time, both in and out of the suit.  The case of Iron Patriot raises a key point about the film; where The Dark Knight Rises spent so much time working toward the symbolic significance of the costume, Iron Man 3 revisits the first film’s closing line – “I am Iron Man” – in search of some greater truth about its protagonists.  It almost seems like an effective metaphor for changing creative teams:  you can paint the suit any color you like, you can strap on any number of accoutrements, and you can even blow up as much of the trappings as you like.  Because what really matters is the person inside the suit.  You need to get the character right for any of the rest of it to work.

And in that respect, Iron Man 3 succeeds.  It evolves the character of Tony Stark in a number of intriguing ways, and the promise that “Tony Stark will return” (shades of James Bond?) was never more fascinating.  See you in Avengers 2, Tony.

Iron Man 3 is rated PG-13 “for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence throughout, and brief suggestive content.”  There’s a modest amount of blood in scenes that involve iron-suited fisticuffs, as well as an unsettling heat signature around most of the enemies in the movie; as for suggestive content, Tony Stark meets women, some of them in bikinis.  You can imagine how that conversation goes.

Don’t forget tomorrow is the Double-Oh-Seventh of the month, and you know what that means...

Flight (2012)

No question about it, Denzel Washington is one of the finest actors around, one of that rare remarkable breed of performers whose work is always worth the price of admission, no matter the vehicle.  Fortunately for Flight, Denzel is on board; it’s difficult to imagine this film being as compelling with a less gifted actor in the pilot’s seat.

In Flight, Denzel stars as Captain William “Whip” Whittaker, a star airline pilot with a major substance abuse whose life is thrust into the eye of the media after miraculously saving a plane from mechanical failure.  On his road to recovery, Whip strikes up a bond with fellow addict Nicole (Kelly Reilly), while his lawyer (Don Cheadle) and union rep (Bruce Greenwood) try to save him from prison.

Flight could have been disastrous.  The marketing touts this film as an intense thriller about finding the truth behind a mysterious crash-landing, but what you actually get are two very depressing hours in which Denzel drinks and refuses help from everyone close to him.  This should not be a pleasant moviegoing experience.  But, like Whip, Denzel manages to save the movie from catastrophe by being so good at what he does.

Denzel plays drunk better than anyone in recent memory, recalling the Oscar-winning performance by Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart but with more fearless sophistication.  The key, he says, is that intoxicated people pretend they’re not drunk, and Whip’s continual rejection of his problem coupled with his insistence that he’s “good” give us a subtle depiction of a man who’s almost always toeing the precarious line between sobriety and jeopardy.  The film is so very nearly exclusively Denzel’s that I’m wondering if we’re looking at another Oscar nod for the man, who commands the film in ways very similar to Daniel Day-Lewis’s highly engaging work in Lincoln.

Indeed, you could strip away much of what else works in Flight and still have a central performance successful enough to carry a film on its own.  Cheadle and Greenwood are solid in supporting roles that require their patience with Whip’s frustrating regressions, but their characters never really pay off in the way that John Goodman’s cocaine dealer does; equal parts Walter Sobchak and The Dude, Goodman struts to the sounds of “Sympathy for the Devil” in two key scenes that advance the plot but introduce tricky moral choices that might leave the audience wondering just what’s being sanctioned.  This is to say nothing of the curious and nameless cancer patient played by James Badge Dale (you know him as Jack Bauer’s partner from Season 3), who’s introduced as a man potentially with all the answers, but the film never revisits him, neither physically nor thematically; it’s a shame, because the character is charming and memorable, and he says some particularly pointed themes on which the film ought to follow up.

Disappointingly, the biggest supporting role – one that’s almost set up as a featured co-lead – is Reilly’s turn as Nicole.  Introduced in an opening that pairs her personal rock-bottom with Whip’s midair emergency, Nicole never quite accomplishes anything other than serving as a kind of billboard for Alcoholics Anonymous.  She’s set up as a voice of reason, an exit for Whip from his disastrous lifestyle, and some of the scenes where she’s unable to save Whip are heartbreaking.  But the film’s investment in her dissipates when she exits the film without casting an eye back; at the film’s end, Whip’s hollow reunion with his estranged son might have rang truer had the film made peace instead with Whip’s unresolved relationship with Nicole (something the film only alludes to in photographs, a blatant storytelling cheat).

But where director Robert Zemeckis wisely allows the film to be Denzel’s, the disproportionate balancing act he plays with the supporting cast doesn’t carry over to his competency in the film’s crucial airplane scene, which is as viscerally terrifying as recent aerial trauma films like United 93 or even some of the less schmaltzy scenes of the Final Destination franchise.  As much as I deplore the shaky cam technique, Zemeckis makes it work here, helping us to forget that we’re watching a soundstage filmed upside down.  If there’s a complaint to be had about this scene, as successful as it is, it’s that I never quite felt in danger with Denzel at the helm.  Forget what the trailers gave away; I’d let Denzel pilot my airplane, substance abuse or not.

Ultimately, Flight is a movie that by all accounts shouldn’t work as well as it does.  There are several filmmaking missteps, including the fact that the movie never quite lives up to its highly compelling opening act.  But this is as much a Denzel Washington vehicle as anything else, and in this respect Flight earns high marks for allowing a star performer to wield his craft with as much dignity and dexterity as he possesses.

Flight is rated R “for drug and alcohol abuse, language, sexuality/nudity and an intense action sequence.”  As mentioned above, Denzel drinks, smokes, and ingests cocaine several times in the film, almost always to excess.  The film begins with Denzel in and out of bed with a fully nude stewardess, but after that the film is mostly chaste; the old buttocks/hospital gown gag is trotted out once more but is played for a weak laugh.  And most viewers will probably find the midair catastrophe distressing, as is its somewhat bloody and wrecked aftermath.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

If you're expecting a negative review, turn around now. Iron Man 2 combines three of my favorite things: summer blockbusters (a sure sign that my summer review series has kicked off again), comic books (whose adaptations I review all too often) here, and Robert Downey, Jr. (whose movies aren't reviewed often enough here). And it does so successfully.

Iron Man 2 picks up literally right where the first one left off: Now that Tony Stark (Downey) has outed himself as the metal-suited superhero Iron Man, he has to face new sharks in the water. A bevy of enemies accost him, including the smarmy looter Senator Stern (Garry Shandling) and business rival Justin Hammer (the underappreciated Sam Rockwell). The real foe here is Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke, blending elements of Iron Man foes Whiplash and the Crimson Dynamo), who possesses technology similar to Iron Man - tech he plans to use against Stark. Along the way, Tony Stark is off-again with secretary/love interest Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and buddy Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle, replacing Terrence Howard), on-again with new aide Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johannson), and on-the-fence about S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson and his eyepatch) and his Avengers-related offer.

Fans of the first movie will have plenty to smile about here. Iron Man, you'll recall, came at a time when "The darker, the better" was the order of the day in the comic book adaptation world. Enter Tony Stark, sauntering into the comic book world with a drink in one hand and a punchline in the other. Iron Man 2 continues that tradition, with the one-liners coming as fast as machine gun fire. There's only one scene that borders on over-the-top, comedically speaking, and that's Tony Stark's birthday party, which he hosts while in full Iron Man gear and while completely intoxicated. But the scene survives - and the film thrives - because of Downey's personality; he's impeccably cast here in a character who's larger than life, just like his personifier. If there are such things as roles one was born to play, this is RDJ's.

The rest of the cast is in fine form, too. Paltrow and Johannson, both of whom have been known to turn in less than stellar performances, have real chemistry with RDJ, and the action scenes with which Johannson's tasked are pulled off with Alias-style sangfroid. It's always a delight to see Sam Jackson, and Cheadle does such a solid job as "Rhodey" that you'll almost forget about Terrence Howard. While Rourke and Rockwell aren't on the level of Heath Ledger's Joker, as far as villainy goes they're as good as the best of the Marvel baddie crew (i.e., Willem Dafoe in Spider-Man and Ian McKellan in X-Men), though Rockwell is a bit campier than some may care for. Even director Jon Favreau steps in front of the camera for a fun turn as gregarious driver/bodyguard Happy Hogan, who gets a terrific action sequence of his own.

The movie, though, is rightfully Downey's, and Iron Man's by extension, and so fans will be relieved to know that - despite this film having a much larger ensemble cast than its predecessor - the focus is still very much on Tony Stark and that metal suit of his. Even shout-outs to Captain America and Thor (that is, other Marvel films in the pipeline) are done in the context of their meaning to Tony (it's not spoiling anything to say that they mean absolutely nothing to the narcissistic playboy). Action sequences revolve around him, too - and, boy, are they dazzling. The effects are top-notch, and the aerial combat scenes will have you on the edge of your seat.

But in spite of all the razzle-dazzle, Iron Man 2 is just plain fun, with as much to enjoy, if not more, as the first film offered. And that's really the best review I can offer for the movie. I could go into a lengthy "Tony Stark as John Galt" analogy, or I could spend paragraphs oohing and ahhing over how great Scarlett Johannson looks in black spandex (but seriously...), or I could even ruminate on the significance of the film's praise of a privatized military-industrial complex. But I'd be overlooking the fact that the movie makes the popcorn taste a little better. It's a summer blockbuster with a sense of humor and an intelligence beyond a high school graduation equivalent. It's well-done, made by people who know what they're doing - and, more importantly, who know how to entertain an audience.

Iron Man 2 carries an MPAA rating of "PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, and some language." Lots of robotic beings blow up, and guys in metal suits fight a lot, menacing each other along the way. Language -and the assumed innuendo - is pretty tame.

As Tony Stark says, "Oh, it's good to be back!"