Movie Muhfriday 14: Iron Man 2 - 9-out-of-10 T's

Last night, I saw Iron Man 2... and I hemorrhaged from all the awesome.

If you liked the first movie (and if you're 93% of the people who saw it, you did like it, says Rotten Tomatoes), you'll like this one. It has everything the first one had, only filled with steroids, on a sugar high, and wielding a mini-gun loaded with cocaine-laced bullets that give you a massage instead of tear through your puny human flesh.

Three years ago, I had never heard of Robert Downey, Jr., or if I did, I didn't care. Now, he's one of my faves. He takes Tony Stark, a character I've only ever really given half a care about, and makes him amazing. When you watch him, you understand why he does what he does: Tony Stark is so crazy smart that he can think through problems and conversations faster than the rest of us can have them, so he comes across as annoying and childish because he's bored by the rest of us. Then, in this movie, the glowy thing in his chest is poisoning him, so the thing that's keeping him alive is also killing him. He can't not use it, he's exhausted every resource at his disposal, and he's come up blank: there is nothing he can do. He get's self-destructive in this movie, trying to pack as much life into the time he has left as he can. Great acting here.

Gwyneth Paltrow is herself, which is what you want when you hire her. She puts in a solid performance as the one person who really, really cares about Tony Stark, and can't understand why he's apparently trying to kill himself with parties.

Mickey Rourke is great as the bad guy, Sam Rockwell is funny as the guy who wants to be Tony Stark but can't quite pull it off, Scarlett Johansson is foxy (not a lot of acting as much as kicking butt in a skin-tight jumper, which I'm okay with), Sam Jackson is Sam Jackson, which is all anyone can ever really ask for... I only have a problem with one actor in this movie, and it isn't really his fault: Don Cheadle. This is the reason this movie isn't a 10 on the T-ometer.

... Tooootally the same guy.

I liked Terrence Howard as James Rhodes in the first movie. He was serious, but I bought that he and Tony Stark were friends. That scene in the plane where they get drunk and chatter amidst pole-dancing flight attendants, the concern on his face when he rescues Tony from the desert, his teaser-riffic "Next time, baby" at the end of the movie when looking at the Mark 2 armor... I liked him. I established a connection with his version of the character.

So, in the beginning of Iron Man 2 when Don walks in to a senate hearing, all bidness, I knew in my head who he was supposed to be, but he wasn't. It isn't Don's fault. I want to stress that. It isn't even the writer's fault: if it had been Terrence, all my emotion, my liking for the character, my belief that he and Tony were friends, would have carried over. But instead, there's Don. I don't believe that he and Tony are friends: he's all bidness the entire movie. There's no "friend" there, just a military guy who hangs around and tells Tony to get his act together and whines about how much he "went to bat" for him.

Don puts in a solid performance, but I don't understand why they needed him, or why they replaced Terrence. I guess... they wanted somebody... blacker? (Can I say that?)

Anyway. Good movie, despite my little rant there. Great movie, actually. I had a blast. There were so many robot-fights... so many robot fights. Action, logical development of character, hilarity (sometimes at possibly inappropriate moments according to my father, but I don't think there's ever a bad time for humor; I freaking love "the Ex-wife"... watch the movie, you'll understand), the now-typical-but-still-welcome teasers, the actually-pretty-solidly-based-in-actual-science parts... awesome.

And stick around after the credits. I'm not even going to say what happens. Let me just say that me and the guys who stuck around after probably woke up some people with the crazy-happy shouts and dancing we did in that final split second of film. So much shouting and dancing...

Watch Iron Man 2. I'm going to see it again. I'll probably even pay to see it somewhere much nicer than where I work, because it's totally worth it.