| Welcome to The Comm. We hope you enjoy your visit. So, you, uh, you're viewing this as a guest. That's fine, that's cool. I guess. Yeah, ok, it's not. You should definitely join if you're cool people, and if you're actually all ready a member, move your lazy phalanges and sign in! Jump in! |
| Let's Talk Iron Man; [SPOILERS] | |
|---|---|
| Topic Started: May 9 2010, 06:23 PM (44 Views) | |
| Zeth | May 9 2010, 06:23 PM Post #1 |
Full of life.
|
New film? You see it? You did? Good. You didn't? You should. Let's talk. Now. Spoilers ahead! So I'll start off with some basic and broad comments and we can talk it up from there? Good? Fantastic. Let's go. Pros: -War Machine Rock the boat, rock the boat; don't tip the boat over! -Happy Hogan Comedic Relief? Yes. Waste of screentime? No. -Humour What did the wrench say to the screwdriver?/What?/"Top Notch."/...That doesn't make any sense./Idiot. -THOR. Period. Drawbacks? -Scarlett Johansson pretending to be Black Widow. Boo-hiss. Also, I'm biased. -Silver Centurion armour showcased and immediately discarded. Sad face. Not sure about: -Ivan Vanko as hybrid Crimson Dynamo/Backlash, aka "Whiplash" On the one hand, Lzherusskie was cool, on the other hand: "This is not my boird." -Re-envisioned Justin Hammer Funny, needed role character who did his job well enough. Still not Justin Hammer. Allow me to expound just a wee bit. So, Rhodey as War Machine. Very cool. I didn't particularly care for the way in which he obtained the suit, nor the way he just handed it to Hammer, but at the same time, I DID like it that in doing so he remained true to character as portrayed in comics, if not as he was in the first film. I think that was the only thing I didn't like though, was the fact that the characterisation changed between films. Still, the change was slight, justifiable, and Don Cheadle did a bang-up job with the part. Better than Howard in the first film? Eh, about par for the course, just different. But when you already made the transition from comic to film, the change in actors isn't jarring really. Yeah, wording this paragraph made my opinion sound more conflicted than it actually is... War Machine. Love him. The end. Happy Hogan was cool; I liked Happy in this film more than I did in the comics in which he appeared. His role wasn't huge, and the only thing he really did other than get Tony his Centurion armour and distract Whiplash for a lil' bit was comic relief, but he flowed well, and he holds a great deal of potential in future stories which--if you've seen the film you know--there is no doubt are coming as soon as the companies can possibly complete them with the quality they've produced thus far. The one thing that did disappoint me about Happy I'll bring up when I talk about that Johansson woman. Humour. Twas funny in the right degree. There wasn't too little, there wasn't too much. Not much to say here, it just was. Thor. Period. Scarlett Johansson as Agent Romanoff/Black Widow. Ok, first of all, I just...don't like Johansson. I don't think she's a good actress, nor do I believe she's pretty, really, at all. So yeah, not even a base sex appeal pulled her through this film for me. and it seemed that's really all she was there for. I mean yes, they did give her the role of "looking after Tony"--a role, I might add, already covered by Tony's own bodyguard Happy Hogan as far as physical protection goes and all the rest of SHIELD as represented by Samuel L. Jackson/Nick Fury and Clark Gregg/Phil Coulson as far as objectivity and guidance is concerned--but...wait, I just said it. The one plot-necessary action she had to perform was blowout a bunch of Hammer Industry guards and reboot the War Machine armour so as to flush out Vanko's treachery. (Something I believe Vanko probably would have had fail-safes against anyway, but whatever, let's give SHIELD this one.) However, it wouldn't have taken much tweaking at all to have Happy Hogan--who was THERE WITH HER--take care of that. Yeah, so, basically Johansson was there to show off her large posterior, ungainly bust, and less than appealing mug. Which almost got Happy killed. Turns out that wasn't a good idea either, huh? Silver Centurion armour appears, is cool for approximately 3 or 4 minutes as it systematically trashed with no explanation of when or why it is made (thought he latter admittedly is heavily implied and obvious), and then more or less ceases to exist. It was played off as a more portable, less heavyweight version of the regular suit that Tony would use in emergencies, which is a logical thing to have, but is even less connected to the original kick-butt Silver Centurion than the young and whiny Justin Hammer is to his comic-book original. And this isn't even considering the implications of what such a lightweight, on-the-go armour would have on the story, which is huge. All things considered, it seems the Silver Centurion armour was in there just as a shout-out to die hard geeks and to help introduce Vanko/Whiplash, which I can understand but am disappointed by. So, Ivan Vanko. Uh...yeah, not sure what I think about him in this film. The film-makers drew on elements from both the Crimson Dynamo's backstory and the Backlash character to create him as "Whiplash." He was a decent enough villain--very straightforward and set on what to do, just not into the whole Xanatos Gambit thing like Obadiah Stane was in the first film. In fact, fairly sure Vanko only pulled the wool over Hammer's eyes and nobody else's, and that was because Hammer was being greedy and rash and non-too-smart. At the same time though, he does do a fairly decent job of being a more original character while simultaneously connecting to comic-book source, and he's interesting to watch. Justin Hammer in this film is newer, younger, whinier, and funnier. I can't really write much on him because one of his disappointing characteristics is that he was very shallow and wasn't explored much outside the obvious desires he harbours, but his character's specific ending is so empty and open that it's almost like the film-makers were pointing to him and tellign the audience that he'll be back and better and badder. My reason for putting Justin Hammer on the "not sure" list as opposed to a "disappointment" list is almost purely out of me wanting to see him explored more. He was basically an interesting plot tool in this one. |
 Administrator of Mercury Ice and The Comm 
| |
 |
 
|
| Lindy | May 9 2010, 08:26 PM Post #2 |
 
|
I'm not knowledgeable enough to go deep into a conversation with this one. But! I definitely loved the movie and it was really good. I wasn't let down like I have been with sequels to movies in the past (we've all seen one that was just horrible at some time or another and really fell short in comparison to the first movie.) And the humor was well balanced too. I want to go see it again, but that's just me. 
|
|
|
|
| Cataphrak | May 12 2010, 06:52 PM Post #3 |
[Insert pretentious statement here.]
|
Watched it, liked the movie, very nice. TWO things that bug me in the final showdown-ish portion though. One: This is less of a problem, I understand it from a thematic point of view, when Black Widow beats up all the guards in the corridor. Granted, it's stylish (a bit choppy though), and very nice, (because apparently Ethan is one of the five or six straight males in North America who doesn't think Scarlett Johansson is hot.) it also doesn't make SENSE seeing as next scene, she bursts in the door, with a pair of semi-autos in hand. Now, if she had brought those with her (seems like a logical assumption, if she'd taken them off the guards, why the hell didn't they just shoot her?), what the hell was she (and Happy for that matter, why didn't just shoot that annoying bugger he spends the entire scene grappling with) doing NOT using said semi-autos. If anything, she could have disabled one guard, and used him as a hostage to get through the rest. Two: This may not seem big to you, but I write military science fiction. On the matter of the Ex-Wife. Now, Hammer SPECIFICALLY states that the Ex-Wife is a relativistic-kill vehicle. It's pretty much a solid piece of heavy metal that gets accelerated in flight to ludicrous speeds, which it then uses to punch through anything in its way. (a solid object travelling at 3000m/s impacts with the same force as it's mass in high explosive) Problem is, an RKV needs distance and flight time to get up to speed using it's drives (the drive plume was clearly visible as the thing was in flight). War Machine did not GIVE it said flight time. He shot the bloody thing from a distance of what was, at MOST 20 metres, no wonder it just bounced off and fizzled out. Not only was the needlessly complicated launch mechanism well, needlessly complicated (you could turn an RKV's drives on and throw it like a lawn dart for the same effect) it was also NOT USED PROPERLY, in a gesture that wasted time for a joke that really wasn't that funny and throws into question just how Rhodey got to become the USAF's senior futuretech weapons guy in the first place. |
Spambot Kills: x175 | |
|
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · The Golden Comm Theater · Next Topic » |
12:06 AM Sep 9
