Iron Man 2

[5.0
stars] [IMDb Link]

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

A rare solo trip to the megaplex, as Mrs. Salad had no interest in seeing Iron Man 2. A decent crowd was in attendance for the Sunday noon showing.

In this episode, Tony Stark/Iron Man is initially riding high, having brought to the world a Pax Ferricanus. (Yes, I made that up.) He's also super-obnoxious about it, which is only bearable by our knowledge that he's about to be brought down more than a couple pegs. In drab and snowy Moscow, Ivan Vanko (played wonderfully well by Mickey Rourke) is his opposite number, looking for vengeance against the Stark family for perceived injustice to his father. A grandstanding U. S. Senator (Gary Shandling) is looking to expropriate the Iron Man technology. A rival arms dealer (Sam Rockwell) aims to take down Stark by fair means or foul, and he's kidding about the "fair" part.

And Tony has his own little problem he's keeping to himself.

As always, Iron Man is the true geek hero. Tony Stark has no superpowers, other than his scientific/engineering genius, undiminished by his hard-partying ways. And nobody's quicker with a wisecrack. It's a lot of fun, marred only by the sloppy, perfunctory inclusion of the Black Widow character, played by Scarlett Johansson.

But I can give no fewer than five point zero stars to a movie where the hero upbraids a Senator: You want my property? You can't have it!

I saw the teaser trailer for Super 8, produced by Steven Spielberg, directed/written by J. J. Abrams. Apparently it involves Roy Neary driving his repair truck into a train shipping one or more very mean aliens from Area 51 to Ohio. I would buy my ticket right now, if I could, but it's not coming out until next summer.

In other trailer news: The A-Team looks awesome; The Last Airbender looks spectacular, but could well be spectacularly stupid; Adam Sandler's Grown Ups is a good bet to be dreadful.


Last Modified 2024-01-30 3:48 PM EDT