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While the original is still my favorite, I love that this expand the universe so much more. I can't wait to see what Marvel is going to do. It's unprecedented.



Agent Coulson: Good luck! We need you!
Tony Stark: More than you know.
Agent Coulson: Not that much!

A brilliant hero film. A brilliant character piece. The movie my Superman movie will have to live up to one day.

Six months after Tony Stark revealed his alter ego to the world, he is more famous and more alone than ever. His party-boy lifestyle enhanced by his new fame, Tony finds little time for the running of Stark Industries and turns the empire over to Pepper, and takes on a new assistant named Natalie. However, this new level of fame comes with consequences – the government wants to take the Iron Man weapon away, Rhoadie is pulled between friend & country, rival Justin Hammer is the new government weapons man and an old secret from the Stark family past surfaces in the form of Ivan Vanko. Vanko is set on proving Tony Stark is a fraud and invents a rival technology and alter ego bent on destroying Iron Man & Tony Stark.

Jon Favreau has done it. He’s proven that he and his franchise have the stuff; he’s turned out a quality movie that isn’t just a great sequel to a fantastic first part, but it’s a great movie on its own. Iron Man 2 is a sequel that lives up to its original and helps to make what we love about that world even better than it was before.

One of the elements that makes Iron Man 2 such a spectacular film is that while being a summer blockbuster, and an action film Favreau and writer Justin Theroux managed to remember that the effects and action are meaningless unless there is a story behind all of it. There is a story in Iron Man 2, a great one and what makes it great it exactly what made Iron Man great – it’s story about a flawed man that decides to do better.

Tony Stark is and always will be an amazing character, and in Iron Man 2 Stark ends up on a free fall, rushing towards rock bottom as he deals with fame, life and the monster in himself. Stark has the entire world at his fingertips and yet he is living completely out of control, drunk on power and fame. Robert Downey Jr. again takes a powerful turn as Stark and lends the role great gravitas, centering Tony’s arch which is one that is eerily similar to a spiral he was on earlier in his life.

Don Cheedle is also notable as Col. Rhodes and had one of the hardest parts in the film as he took the role over from the ousted Terrence Howard. However, by the end of Cheedle’s first scene you will forget Howard completely and be glad for the grounded air Cheedle gives Rhodes and his relationship torn between his country and Stark.

Perhaps what is the most comforting about Iron Man 2 is the obvious care shown throughout the film to create the Marvel Universe. This is a film about Tony Stark, but woven throughout the film are subtle hints that perhaps there are other things going on there as well, things that Nick Fury & SHIELD aren’t telling Stark or any of us.

This is a movie that will be seen multiple times by most audience members, and I urge you that when you go, especially if you are a fan of the Marvel Universe – stay until the end of the credits.

Director: Jon Favreau
Writer: Justin Threoux
Tony Stark: Robert Downey Jr.
Rhodey: Don Cheedle
Natalie Rushman: Scarlett Johansson
Pepper: Gwyneth Paltrow
Ivan Vanko: Mickey Rourke
Nick Fury: Samuel L. Jackson
Agent Coulson: Clark Gregg
Howard Stark: John Slattery
Happy Hogan: Jon Favreau
Jarvis: Paul Bettany

Ivan Vanko: If you could make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him. There will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come. All I have to do is sit here and watch, as the world will consume you.

That’s right. The day has come.

I am seeing Iron Man 2 at midnight, and in a special stroke of brilliance Paramount is playing Iron Man at select theatres at 9 pm so you can see both.

The best double feature since GrindHouse.

Of course this didn’t keep me from watching it again on my own last week. I love this movie and I am far too excited about being invited back into Tony Starks world.

Pepper: Agent Couslon, I just wanted to say thank you very much for all of your help.
Agent Coulson: That's what we do. You'll be hearing from us.
Pepper: From the Strategic Homeland...
Agent Coulson: Just call us S.H.I.E.L.D.

Iron Man is one of those movies that I can throw into my DVD player no matter what mood I am in and I know I will enjoy it and be entertained. However, I sill haven’t seen Captain America’s shield in Tony’s workshop! If you know where it is please tell me!

I know I watch this movie a lot, but I have to say that I don’t care. I really watch a lot of movies – as should be obvious to the people that read this blog. So it’s not like I watch this movie every night and am absolutely obsessed with it. This weekend alone I watched three movies in the theatre…so I guess what I am trying to say is that you just have to put up with it – I’m going to keep watch Iron Man.

Tony: I just want you to reach in, and you're just gonna gently lift the wire out.
Pepper: Is it safe?
Tony: Yeah, it should be fine. It's like Operation. You just don't let it touch the socket wall or it goes "beep."
Pepper: What do you mean, "Operation"?
Tony: It's just a game, never mind.

Making a great film is like capturing lightning in a bottle, and I truly think Favreau & co. captured something with Iron Man. As great as many other comic book films are Favreau and his team managed to do what so few comic book films have – he captured the essence and story of the characters without being so literal that the non-geeks were bored.

While I am a geek, I am a prime example of the demographics they managed to snag – not only am I a female, but I am a DC girl not a Marvel one. I knew nothing about the Marvel-verse until Iron Man, since then I’ve become so interested in the characters that I’ve been learning about them and at Con I bought the Civil War trade paperback as I have an inclining that this might be where the Marvel movie franchise is going, plus the idea of the Super-hero registration act is pretty dang compelling.

I still hold that getting Iron Man 4-5 films into his career is a great thing for Jon favreau, and I would love to be in his position one day – just in the DC universe…

Agent Coulson: I'm Agent Phil Coulson with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
Pepper: That's quite a mouthful.
Agent Coulson: I know. We're working on it.

You have no idea how badly I have wanted to be on the set of Iron Man 2 and the fact that I have been able to keep tabs on the production through Jon Favreau’s Twitter hasn’t helped. I love Iron Man and watching it a few dozen times has not diminished the fact that I think it is one of the best films of 2008 and one of the best comic book movies to date.

I don’t think I have paid enough credit to Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts. Pepper is a fantastic modern girl Friday. When I was in high school Paltrow was what every popular girl tried to model herself as – feminine, trendy, chique, and classy. She was the ideal. I never really understood the appeal of Paltrow even though I respected her talent, but in Iron Man I finally saw something in her that I look for in all the female actors I admire – strength. Pepper is a character that is going to do what is right no matter what and be fiercely loyal to anyone that she cares about, and she gets the best one liners.

Iron Man 2 wraps on Friday and I am far too envious for my own good. I can’t wait to see what Favreau pulled together for us all come May 2010.

Tony: Where'd you get that dress?
Pepper: It was a birthday present... from you, actually.
Tony: I got great taste, don't I?

Iron Man 2 is about to begin principal photography…and so I watched Iron Man again. When I watch Iron Man I kind of get the same feeling about Iron Man 2 that I got when I would think about what the sequal to Batman Begins would be – that I don’t think there is any way the second part of the franchise can be bad.

Jon Favreau put together an incredibly tight, thought out movie in Iron Man and if he commits as much to Iron Man 2 as he did to the first part then I’ll probably have another favorite movie on my hands in 2010.

Agent Phil Coulson: I'm Agent Phil Coulson with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
Virginia 'Pepper' Potts: That's quite a mouthful.
Agent Phil Coulson: I know. We're working on it.

Hard Eight is the directorial debut of visionary filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson; like most of the movies I watch I really didn’t know what this movie was about when I popped it into my DVD player, but like most of PTA’s movies the blurb on the back of the cover really wouldn’t have done much to help.

The film is about a father-son relationship between Sydney and John. They are not blood relations but they meet one day at a diner in Vegas and Sydney for no apparent reason helps the down and out John get back on his feet by teaching him how to play the system in Vegas. The film them flashes forward to two years later when the two have established their familial bond and are now in Reno dealing with semi-success in their life style of gambling and a whole new set of problems brought on primarily by Jimmy a casino thug and Clementine a confused but warm-hearted hooker who becomes entangled in John’s life.

PTA excels at taking characters that are unsympathetic and making them sympathetic. Sydney is one of these characters. Though at the beginning of the film he appears to be an angel in waiting who graciously swoops into John’s life, PTA later reveals that Sydney is actually hiding something huge from John – the reason that he found him.

For anyone that enjoys Anderson’s style of filmmaking this is a must see. He uses many of his familiar players, and the work is beautiful. The oddest thing about this film is that while it feels like a PTA film it does hold the earmarks of being a first feature and you can see where he managed to evolve from Hard Eight.

Director & Writer: Paul Thomas Anderson
Sydney: Philip Baker Hall
John: John C. Reilly
Clementine: Gwyneth Paltrow
Jimmy: Samuel L. Jackson

Sydney: Tell me something. Are you required to flirt, to behave as you do toward that table of men over there? Maybe... it's some part of your job?
Clementine: Uh, they don't say to do it.
Sydney: But if you don't?
Clementine: Well, then I get questioned, like: "Why were so rude to them?", and, I mean, I can't talk back. I can't tell them to fuck off and leave me alone.
Sydney: As a rule?
Clementine: I'd also lose the tip.

Feel free to make fun of me, I saw Iron Man yet again. No matter how much I see this film it entertains me.

However, this was the first time I’ve seen Iron Man knowing that Stan Winston is gone from filmmaking forever and that made me pay even more attention to the effects in the film.

I am still amazed that most of the Iron Man suit was practical (meaning a piece on set that actually worked, not CGI). Winston and his team found a way to make Iron Man mobile and present, and still look completely real and blend with CGI when necessary. It’s true that money solves most problems in movies, but that being said very few people in the effects industry would have even opted for making a working Iron Man suit as well as using CGI.

What grows on me more as well is Robert Downey Jr.’s performance. This is a flawed character that grows a conscience and it never once feels forced or fake. Downey makes a fantastic character feel believable and real, and I would rank his performance as Tony Stark up with Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne – both actors bring a much needed sense of depth and reality to what most people would write-off as “comic book characters”.

This may be the last time I see Iron Man on the big screen, but you can rest assured there will be another review or two once the film is out on DVD.

Agent Phil Coulson: I'm Agent Phil Coulson with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
Virginia 'Pepper' Potts: That's quite a mouthful.
Agent Phil Coulson: I know. We're working on it.

So I saw Iron Man yet again last weekend. I have to say that the more I watch this movie the more I am impressed with Jon Favreau's presence as a director and his ability to make such a crisp, clear and entertaining rendition of a comic book movie. I never knew much about Iron Man before the movie (even though I owned the action figure as a child), but the more I find out the more I am struck with how faithful those involved int he film stayed to the character.

I must say that Iron Man is one of my favorite films of the year so far, right up there with In Bruges. You can bet I will be buying the special edition of this film on DVD the day it is released and probably watching it that night.

By the way, if you think tthree viewings of one movie is bad just wait until The Dark Knight comes out. When Batman Begins came out I saw it at lest 4 times in the theatre and to this day it remains one of the first films I'll pop in if I'm bored and want to watch while I do something else.