AVENGERS RECAP: IRON MAN 2

The inherent danger of Marvel's plan to link up its cinematic adventures is that the set-ups for the other films would overshadow the film being shown. The first Iron Man film had little to do in this regard and handled it's synergistic duties deftly. The Incredible Hulk, despite its crushing mediocrity, also managed to keep playing up the links between the films while keeping focused on the story at hand. But it is in this regard that Iron Man 2 falters and becomes somewhat of a mess.

There's about 40 minutes of a good Iron Man movie in Iron Man 2. That 40 minutes set's up the one man war Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) wants to wage on Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) all on account of his father's honor. Tony is concerned about his legacy too, he's in the middle of running a giant tech convention as a sort of tribute to his father. He might also be dying because of the Iron Man suit that had been protected him up till now. If that weren't enough he has to defend his suit technology from the government and rival tech guru Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell).

This is more than enough for a movie. Threre's a great central mystery around Vanko, and Rourke clearly came to set ready to play (never a guarantee). There's lots of great stakes, tension and even some interesting ideas to play around with. Returning director John Favreau's action scenes still lack pizazz but that didn't hurt the last entry too badly. But sadly these element's aren't allowed to cook and build and everything the film sets up in the first 40 minutes is swept under the rug. Instead the film becomes an extended trailer for The Avengers. We get a lot more of Sam Jackson's Nick Fury (who was introduced in the first films post credit stinger), the shadowy head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and are introduced to his covert agent Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson). They exist to set Tony on track and determine if he is stable enough to join the Avengers team.

But it's just too many balls in the air at once and as a result everything feels truncated. All the ambition that the film wants to have is undercut by the films obligation to the franchise. A lot of potentially great plot elements get short changed. The screwball humor that made the first Iron Man feel so fresh now feels canned. But the greatest waste is Mickey Rourke, who has nothing to do for most of the film, he has a great introduction and his first confrontation with Tony is fun despite making no sense, but the film forgets about him. For nearly an hour he has nothing to do but slowly prepare for his next fight. Rourke does what he can, but a villain can only be so bad if your not willing to put him in a room with the hero.

Let's look at this from a screenwriting perspective by looking at one of the great villains of all time. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, you never see Khan thinking about getting revenge or getting ready to get revenge. Every time you see that character he is actively working to get revenge on Captain Kirk. A more pertinent example would be The Dark Knight where The Joker's presence is always felt even in scenes he's not in. In Iron Man 2 Stark thinks that Vanko is dead for most of the movie, and Vanko has nothing to do but build drones for use in the film's climax. I know I'm harping on this a lot, but a film is only as good as its antagonist and that goes triple for action movies. This could have been a great popcorn sequel, but at the end of the day Iron Man 2 is too busy spouting exposition for another film to tell it's own story right.

Grade: B-

Previous installments in this series:
Iron Man
The Hulk and The Incredible Hulk

Future installments:

Thor

Captain America

The Avengers

AVENGERS RECAP: IRON MAN

Summer movie season is nearly upon us and, just like every summer, there will be a fare share of sequels. I thought it might be fun to look back on some of the previous installments in several of the major franchises and examine how these films have grown and changed over the years.

Marvel's Avengers films are a very unique case as it's not a traditional movie franchise, it's almost a Frankenstein franchise. We have a series of films from different companies (Paramount, Universal, Disney), with a uniform continuity designed to lead up to the upcoming Avengers film, which will team up all of these superheroes to fight some unknown threat. It's made all the more complicated as most of these lead-up films are franchises onto themselves. It's not that dissimmilar to how Marvel's continuity works in the comics. Superheroes can appear in each others comics and team up, however, there's a difference between writing/drawing it and doing it in a film. The difference is $150-220 million per film.

This is a risky plan. If any one film where to flop, it could endanger the whole project, and, with the exception of The Hulk, all of these characters lack the pervasive non-geek awareness that Batman, Spider-Man, or the X-Men enjoy. The unenviable job of launching this grand experiment in corporate and artistic synergy ultimately fell on the shoulders of director John Favreau (Elf, Zathura) and his 2008 film Iron Man. A fun, functional film that follows formula a little stiffly at times, but has strong characterization and humor on it's side.

For the five people who haven't seen Iron Man, the film tells the story of brilliant scientist/CEO playboy Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) as he changes from a selfish, womanizing jerk into a slightly less selfish, womanizing jerk. His father was Howard Stark who was the Howard Hughes of the Marvel Universe and helped create the atomic bomb. It's a bit of a shadow for anyone, but Tony is a genius in his own right. The film starts off strong with Tony joking around with some soldiers in a Humvee somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan before being taken captive by terrorists. This in media res opening does a great job dolling out character information. After awakening, he learns that the terrorist group, known as The Ten Rings, are using weapons made by Stark's company to commit atrocities. Stark manages to escape by building a makeshift battle-suit. His escape is the best action beat in the film, possibly because it has the most immediate stakes, but we'll talk more about the action scenes in a minute. After Tony returns, he vows that his company will no longer make weapons. A move that angers his vice-president Obidaih Stane (Jeff Bridges) and his companies military liaison Col. Rhodes (Terrence Howard). And that's about 80% of the plot. Most of what follows is about how Stark want's to reshape his company and redeem his family legacy.

Most origin story films treat the actual "origin" as something of a burden to be gotten through as quickly as possible, but Iron Man turns it into a bit of an asset. Watching Tony building his Iron Man suits is a lot of fun, there's a Michael Crichton-esque fascination to it. It doesn't have the well-researched "realism" of a Crichton novel (I don't believe for a second that he can really fit into his later suits without carving out large parts of  his calves, and back mussels and he'd burn off his feet too), but there is a boyish fascination in the testing and construction of the suits.

The real fascination is Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. He's funny and quippy where a lot of superhero's are brooding and, frankly, a little dull. Tony Stark would be right at home in a screwball comedy. This is especially evident in his relationship with his "girl friday" Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Their back and forth quip battle is easily the most enjoyable element in the film. What does it say when the best part of an action movie isn't the action?

In fact the actions scenes feel slightly sidetracked, as if Favreau and his screenwriters forgot that Iron Man is supposed to be a action film. But the chemistry of the ensemble is so strong that I'd actually be just fine if the film never had an action scene after Tony's escape form The Ten Rings. The greatest strength of the action sequences is that they are well conceived and well integrated into the plot. This is not a case of a film where beats are dropped in every 10 minutes to the detriment of the story. But the scenes themselves never rise above competent. Favreau's action style is a bit old fashioned in the best possible way - easy to follow and devoid of shaky-cam or Chaos Cinema editing. There are some nice monster movie touches in the climactic showdown, but none of it deserves iconic status.

As far as Iron Man planting seeds for the Avengers movie, Favreau keeps it light. After Tony returns from his captivity, he is pestered by Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a debriefing. S.H.I.E.L.D. being the government agency that will ultimately create the Avengers team. Coulson also shows up at the end a bit. There is also a post-credit stinger introducing us to S.H.I.E.L.D. commander Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). The set-ups are there but Favreau never lets his synergistic obligations get in the way of the movie and finds a way to make it all fun.

Iron Man is a wildly entertaining movie but lacks the ambition to really enter into the top tier of superhero movies. There are some nice ideas about a son reshaping his father's legacy and corporate responsibility, but these ideas feel more like window dressing then something the film is interested in exploring. It does have a lot of charm though, and that goes a long way.

Grade: B+

AVENGERS RECAP DIRECTORY:
Iron Man
Hulk/The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2

Thor

Captain America

The Avengers