Changing Lanes

I hadn’t seen the original Iron Man movie in the theatre and so I blamed that to not liking it i.e. the big screen awe effect of having a super hero bash different villains was missing. So when I heard about the sequel, decided to watch it in the theatre. Till yesterday morning, I thought it was a 3D movie but on checking the cinestar website I realized it wasn’t. I think not having it in 3D was a huge mistake cause even though 3D is over rated, I’d think a movie like this would have gained a lot from it.

11pm show at Mall of the Emirates, I was a little excited after seeing everyone else looking forward to be amazed by Tony Stark aka Iron Man. 2 hours later and the only word that came to my head was rubbish. That’s how bad I thought the movie was even though everyone else seemed to like it in bits.

The problem is when I think about comic book movies, I have this high expectation because a comic book has so much material to build on so I assume the movie will be amazing and apart from a few, most of them are disappointing. I’m not a huge comic book person but I know a bit about them to know how bad these films always end up being. I suppose it’s similar to the problem that the Harry potter movie series faces.

Now talking about Iron Man 2. The story revolves around Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.), the rich multi millionaire play boy super hero who has privatized world peace. How the government is trying to get their hands on the technology/weapon that is Iron Man while trying to replicate it with the help of Hammer industries run by Justin Hammer (played by Sam Rockwell). This time we also had a side kick in the form of Lt. Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes (played this time by Don Cheadle) who was the other Iron Man (?). Then we have Ivan Vanko (played by Mickey Rourke) who manages beat Iron Man up in their first clash with his garage built whip thing called whiplash (according to IMDB) and then gets hired by Hammer industries and creates a droid army and a new suit for himself. Wish they’d given him more of a role apart from talking Russian and sarcastic smiles/giggle.

The ladies in the film were Pepper Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) and Natalie Rushman / Natasha Romanoff (played by Scarlett Johansson). Pepper Potts is Tony Starks secretary/love interest/better half etc … whatever you want to call it. Gwyneth Paltrow sleep walked through her tiny role which wasn't a bad thing while Scarlett Johansson was the eye candy (?) of the film to make the hyper guys happy. Tight clothes, skin show, kicking ass (literally) kind of summarized her predictable cliché role.

Finally we had the one eyed Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson) who tries to knock some sense into Tony Stark who goes off the hook in the middle of the movie. I wonder why Samuel L. Jackson agreed to do such an effortless role. Maybe it has something to do with the movie The Avengers.

Few things that annoyed me…
- If Ivan manages to beat up Iron Man so easily in his poorly funded garage project, I’d assume killing Ivan later on when he’s got a whole new armor (with the backing of Hammer industries) would be quite a work out for Iron man and his sidekick but the final show down between them was short and just too easy.
- Don’t call the creation of a new element an almost impossible procedure and then make Tony Stark create it without any hassles.
- Yes we know what USA thinks about Iran, Pakistan, North Korea etc. You don’t need to keep reminding us that through movies as well.
- Yes Tony Stark is a playboy but do you really need to stuff that fact into our face every single time.
- Justin Hammer was annoying….enough said.
- Villains are important, give them more to say.
- Do you really need a character in the movie for guys to ogle over.

I’m sure there were more points but I just can’t break my head over it. Honestly, Robert Downey Jr. did a good job playing TonyStark/Iron Man but the movie was just too boring, lame, predictable, cliché etc that his decent act couldn't save it for me. Overall I’m glad I just paid AED15 for the movie…it wasn’t worth anything more than that.