Iron Man 2
Apr. 29th, 2010 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrasteLast night I was lucky enough to attend a midnight screening of Iron Man 2 in IMAX! I'm not going to give too much away before the rest of the world has a chance to see it, but if you enjoyed the first one (and who didn't?) I can whole-heartedly recommend the sequel.
About the only thing I was really worried about walking in was the replacement Rhodey - I'm a fan of Don Cheadle, but I generally don't like recasts. (Partly because I'm a vidder, which makes that kind of thing really annoying.) However, I am glad to report that War Machine turned out awesome and I almost forgot Cheadle hadn't been there all along. I could have done with more Black Widow - hope she'll be in the Avengers movie! - but other than that I walked away happy.
And I was pleased, on the whole, with how the film portrays Tony in relation to the supporting characters. The film is about how the women and people of colour in his life stick with the White Guy despite what an arrogant jerk he is, but it's also about Tony figuring out that he can't go around being a crazy maverick genius and fixing everything on his own. He can't even start defeating the bad guys and solving all his other problems without a lot of help. When he's actively being a jerk the people around him call him on it and take action instead of putting up with it, which helps.
I mean, the whole paradigm of films where White Guy Hero defeats evil with the aid of his non-White Guy sidekicks is bankrupt, but as a film that fits firmly into that paradigm? Iron Man 2 did not make me want to throw things at the screen.
About the only thing I was really worried about walking in was the replacement Rhodey - I'm a fan of Don Cheadle, but I generally don't like recasts. (Partly because I'm a vidder, which makes that kind of thing really annoying.) However, I am glad to report that War Machine turned out awesome and I almost forgot Cheadle hadn't been there all along. I could have done with more Black Widow - hope she'll be in the Avengers movie! - but other than that I walked away happy.
And I was pleased, on the whole, with how the film portrays Tony in relation to the supporting characters. The film is about how the women and people of colour in his life stick with the White Guy despite what an arrogant jerk he is, but it's also about Tony figuring out that he can't go around being a crazy maverick genius and fixing everything on his own. He can't even start defeating the bad guys and solving all his other problems without a lot of help. When he's actively being a jerk the people around him call him on it and take action instead of putting up with it, which helps.
I mean, the whole paradigm of films where White Guy Hero defeats evil with the aid of his non-White Guy sidekicks is bankrupt, but as a film that fits firmly into that paradigm? Iron Man 2 did not make me want to throw things at the screen.