Iron Man 2

Making a good sequel is a tricky business.  Of course, you want to stay true to what made the first film good, but you also need to change it up a little to keep the audience interested.  The tricky part is that you don't want to change it too little, or the sequel feels too similar to the previous movie (see the Saw series).  One cure for this is to spend the entire film budget on the stars and special effects, leaving you with enough cash to buy eleven bananas, so you just hire a half-witted chimp to write your script (which is the true story behind the making of Bad Boys II).  Every so often, though, filmmakers get it right, giving depth to the characters, while including more action because the origin story has already been told.

Iron Man 2 is one of those sequels that gets it right.  A big part of this is the fact that the principal cast remains from the original film, with one exception.  The role of James "Rhodey" Rhodes is played by Don Cheadle instead of Terrence Howard this time around.  While both have been nominated for an Oscar, I think of this as a casting upgrade because Cheadle is charismatic enough to hold his own in the Ocean's movies, and Howard was pretty wooden in Iron Man.  Other than that, Robert Downey, Jr. returns as Tony Stark, the man that wears the Iron Man armor.  Gwyneth Paltrow also returns as his devoted not-quite-romantically-involved life partner/assistant, Pepper Potts.  Downey is once again fantastic as the egotistical and sarcastic lead character.  Paltrow's character has more to do in this movie, and she's fine, but the plot requires her to be annoyed with Downey most of the time, so their chemistry isn't as strong this time.  Cheadle, however, comes through with a pretty solid performance as Tony Stark's straight-laced best friend.  Jon Favreau apparently did another good job directing, because the actors all performed well and the action was awesome.

The supporting cast is good, too.  The role of the malicious Russian physicist/tinkerer, Ivan Vanko, is played with relish by Mickey Rourke.  It's always better when his character has a reason for looking as haggard as Rourke does naturally; here, he plays a heavily tattooed veteran of the Russian prison system with some very...um...attractive gold teeth and greasy hair.  Aside from his first scene, Rourke is very good; in that first scene, though, he gives a howl of mourning comparable to Hayden Christensen in Star Wars: Episode III.  Rourke's best moments are when he chuckles to himself.  That creepy laugh with that ugly face makes Rourke a pretty scary guy.  The other villain here is Stark's business (but not intellectual) rival, Justin Hammer, played by the always amusing Sam Rockwell.  Rockwell approaches his character as a first-class salesman that doesn't necessarily care to know the details of what he is selling, as long as it makes him money.  As such, he's perfectly annoying.  To be honest, he doesn't come across as a legitimate threat to Stark (because he's not), but the scene where he is talking weapons to Rhodey shows how effective he can be.  Sam Jackson expands his role as super-secret agent Nick Fury from the last film, and he is appropriately Sam Jackson-esque (read: bad-ass).  Scarlett Johannson stretches her acting range in a small supporting role as a sexy redhead/secretary/martial artist that wears really tight clothes.  Garry Shandling was amusing as an antagonistic senator.  They even had Leslie Bibb reprise her slutty journalist role from the last movie and threw in cameos by Olivia Munn and the late Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein.

You might notice that I've given a lot of attention to the actors so far.  While this is an action movie, Iron Man 2 spends a lot of time developing characters and plot.  The first movie was like that, too, but part of that was because they were telling an origin story.  Here, they use that down time to give Stark two separate types of problems.  The first is the fact that Stark is slowly killing himself with the Iron Man suit.  It's not his fault, really, but his chest battery thingie that saved his life in the first film has a metal component that is poisoning him in the long term.  Oops.  It turns out that no known element can replace the one he's using, either.  That means that, when Stark isn't being his arrogant public persona, he is planning for his eventual death.  These scenes go over well, with Downey doing another great job showing Stark at his most vulnerable.

The other problem is, like in the last film, one of assuming responsibility for his technology.  In Iron Man, it was about keeping Stark weapons out of the hands of terrorists.  This time around, Stark has decided to give the Iron Man technology to no one.  Obviously, the US government is not happy with this.  Justin Hammer wants to fill the hole Stark has left in military contracts, but he cannot figure out the Iron Man technology on his own.  That is where Ivan Vanko comes in; his father worked on a previous generation of the Iron Man battery with Tony Stark's father.  Vanko built an imperfect, but effective version of the battery to power his own suit, but this one has weird electric whips instead of armor.  Obviously, the bad guys team up to take down Stark as a business, as well as a hero.

Since this is a sequel, they have made the action scenes even bigger.  Vanko's first scene using his whips is surprisingly cool and the sheer amount of car wreckage is impressive.  Personally, my favorite action had Stark fighting Rhodey, with each in their own Iron Man suit.  It was just cool to watch.  I would like to point out that only billionaires can afford to fight like that in their own homes.  Scarlett Johannson looked convincing in her fight scene, too, although some of her poses seemed like a little too obviously T & A.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but some of it just looked uncomfortable.  The big ending fight scene was great, once Iron Man and Rhodey/War Machine finally teamed up.  The action leading up to their team-up was a little underwhelming, given how long it took and I was a little disappointed by the durability of the evil robot drones in the climax, but the fight with Vanko made up for those concerns.  Until this movie, I never considered whips as even remotely cool or threatening; I'm sure they're an acquired taste (as a weapon), but Vanko looked like a legitimate threat in this movie.

Now, for the bad news.  There are a few moments where this movie failed for me.  The first involved Vanko's first battle scene.  As awesome as it was, it had a ridiculous plot hole.  It looked like his plan was always to sneak on the racetrack and attack Stark's race car...but Stark decided to drive the car himself only minutes before the race began.  Was Vanko planning on sneaking into the fancy restaurant where Stark was going to watch the race, dressed as a car mechanic?  It's not a big deal, I admit, but it was a stupid writing mistake.

The other moment was when Stark is watching an old video of his late father, Howard.  It's pretty boring stuff, showing how focused he was on business and not his family, until Howard addresses Tony through the video.  It's the typical emotionally distant father finally admitting how much he cares for his children speech.  If you liked it here, you'll love it in The Incredibles.  It's not that the scene was terrible, but it just...too predictable.  This scene is meant to show Tony at his most vulnerable, finding inspiration and love for an unexpected place, but it just feels flat.  This is probably because the father-son relationship is barely mentioned until the video is played, but Stark's vulnerable moments in this movie are just not as effective in this movie because they are not spent with other characters.


These flaws are pretty well balanced out by a lot of clever little things throughout the movie, though.  Justin Hammer is such a wanna-be, of course he uses bronzing lotion; it is just as obvious that his palms should be orange from using the bronzer, too.   Rourke's tattoos looked like legitimate Russian prison tattoos, too; I recognized some of them from Eastern Promises.  Pepper Potts was upset at Stark giving away his modern art collection because he worked hard to build it; this is a nice bit of work, making subtle reference to the modern art knowledge she showed briefly in the first film.  There's more stuff, but it's more fun to see it yourself.  Honestly, this movie has a lot going for it.  It is a nearly pitch-perfect sequel that introduced new problems to established characters and developed the returning characters even further.  The action is a little bigger and provides a very powerful character with a more even fight.

Iron Man

Action movies aren't usually noted for their characters, and that is usually for good reason.  Do we really want to see Stallone, Schwarzenegger, or even Van Damme try to grapple with subtle emotion?  No, we usually just want to see them punch through the bad guy's face.  Iron Man is very different because it is an action movie starring an actor that can actually act.  What a concept!

The story here is better than most comic book adaptations.  Sure, it's an origin story, but Iron Man isn't so much about a man gaining super powers as it is about a man deciding to take responsibility for his actions.  At the beginning of the movie, we see Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) being the world's coolest billionaire ever; he is a genius, rich, funny, good with the ladies (even when they want to hate him), the head of a corporation, and he gets to play with stuff that explodes.  Stark's company sells cutting edge weapons to the military, but Stark finds himself on the wrong end of those same weapons when he visits Afghanistan to demonstrate some new missiles for the military.  Stark's convoy is ambushed, and he is taken prisoner by terrorists that want him to create weapons for them.  As a prisoner, Stark sees the weapons that he thinks are being exclusively sold to the US government in the hands of these terrorists.  Understandably, this changes his view on weapons manufacturing.  Since he's a genius, Stark builds a robotic exoskeleton to overcome his captors and escape.  Life's good when you're smart.  And thus, Iron Man is born.  That might be enough for most origin movies, but that just acts as the setup for the film proper.  From this point, Stark tries to find ways to help people instead of hurting them, and this has financial, business, personal, and public repercussions.

This sounds like a fairly action-free action movie, and that's because it kind of is.  There is a lot of talking in this movie.  When there's action, though, it is awesome.  The original Iron Man suit looks and sounds frighteningly heavy.  When Iron Man punches a regular person, they go flying across the room...and it looks like a feasible result.  That is how good the special effects are in this movie; the fighting doesn't come across as cartoony or stylized, but as the logical end result of being punched by a hulking robot.  The first Iron Man suit is pretty sweet, but the later model that Stark sports for the rest of the film is even better.  Sleek and stylish, it just makes sense that it sports the kind of technology that can blow up tanks with missiles the size of a pencil.  The Iron Monger suit used by the villain takes the idea of the original Iron Man suit to the other extreme, showing a preference for pure power that makes Stark's escape scene look like the work of an amateur.  In short, a guy wears a cool robotic suit and stuff gets blown up.  Nothing wrong with that.

Even with the great action sequences, Robert Downey Jr's acting is what makes this movie.  He doesn't play the typical tortured super hero.  He's not trying to be stoic like Superman, scary like Batman, or jokey like Spider-Man.  Instead, he comes across as a very smart man that is constantly making quips because he's smarter than everyone else.  He does whatever he wants because that's how the world works for him and because what he wants to do will work, and Downey is great playing up that intelligence, humor, and confidence; when the character has a realization or a moment of doubt, all those shields are stripped away and Downey shows his range as a dramatic actor. 

Credit for Downey's performance and casting should (at least partially) go to director Jon Favreau, who is able to make a smart, funny, and action-packed blockbuster with actors that had not been in a big hit in years.  Favreau probably didn't have to do much with the actors except encourage their own instincts, because they are all pretty good.  Gwyneth Paltrow does a good job as Stark's right hand; this can be seen with the romantic tension between Paltrow and Downey, which relies heavily on her performance.  I also like her delivery on the quips she uses to undercut Stark's cockiness.  Terrence Howard is okay (at best) as Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes, the resident military straight arrow.  Howard doesn't get to do much except gripe about Stark's casual attitude toward protocol.  When he gets the opportunity to say or do something entertaining, he usually under-performs, particularly with the foreshadowing of him someday wearing his own armor suit.  Part of this is due to his character being essentially a straight man to Downey's antics, but I'm still not sold on Howard as a charismatic actor.  I enjoyed Paul Bettany's voice-over work as Stark's computer more than I liked Howard.  Heck, I enjoyed Leslie Bibb as a judgmental reporter more than I liked him.  The other primary character is Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), Stark's current business partner and former mentor.  Bridges is realistic as the guy who always has to smooth Stark's antics over with the press and the business sector.  When he turns nasty, though, the frustration that must come with his job rises to the forefront.  Personally, I thought Bridges overacted a little toward the end, but he was still fun to watch.

Iron Man is the type of movie that benefits most from the revamped Oscar nominations.  This movie was well-received critically (because it's awesome) and made over $500 million in theaters (because it's awesome), but could only get nominated for technical Oscars.  This movie was deservedly in many Top Ten lists of 2008 and its success will hopefully lead to well-rounded and acted action movies getting a little more respect from critical award shows.

Law Abiding Citizen

I wish the tag line to this movie was "...or Is He?"  Obviously, a movie with the title Law Abiding Citizen and the tag line "The system must pay" makes my tag line a joke, but...this isn't a good movie.  It should take its smiles where it can.

This is a revenge flick, so somebody needs to die, right?  Gerard Butler's wife and daughter are murdered before his eyes; there are two men involved, one that is clearly unwilling to spill blood, and the other that likes to kill and is obviously in charge.  When both men are arrested, the Assistant District Attorney (Jamie Foxx) makes a deal with the bloodthirsty crook, in order to guarantee a conviction and get the timid crook a death sentence.  Butler doesn't like this, but it was Foxx's call to make, and he made it.  Ten years later, Gerard Butler starts killing everyone involved in the case, from the criminals to the judge to the DA's office.  The twist is that Butler allows himself to be arrested...and the killings not only continue, but increase.

Whoa!  What a twist!  How does Butler do it?  Well, you have to thank Kurt Wimmer, the screenwriter for this beauty as well as Ultraviolet and Equilibrium, because it does not make much logical sense.  Okay, the reason Butler is able to kill people, even when he's locked up in prison, is because he is a strategist.  No, really, that's why.  Because he can plan stuff.  Okay, fine.  Butler's a long-established military genius who...no, wait...when the movie opens, he's an inventor of gadgets.  Hmm...well, I guess this generation changes occupations more often than our parents did.  How do you get into that field, I wonder...is there an application?  Is there a check box for revenge-fueled inventors?  No matter.  The dude can plan stuff, and that stuff is death.

Now that would be pretty cool if it was how the movie played out.  If Butler was a Bobby Fisher-level chess genius who could see ten steps ahead, it would be pretty sweet to see all the mean stuff he would set up.  Instead, what we get here is a remote-controlled car outfitted with missiles and a lot of car bombs.  Heck, my creepy high school lab partner can do that.  I will admit that there is a totally awesome cell phone-related death, but that's definitely the only original kill. At first, there is an air of mystery to how Butler does all this, but the last fifth of the movie answers almost everything.  Understanding how Butler does it could be awesome, especially if it was treated as a moment of recognition where everything clicks for Jamie Foxx's character.  Instead, we get answers that aren't terribly original or interesting.

Where does this movie fail, aside from plot originality and violence?  In the area of nudity, for one.  When Butler is arrested (at a time and place he chose) he got naked.  There is no sex in this movie, so there was no need for me to see Butler butt, but a decision was made: the arrest must be pantsless.  You'd think that this would be remarked on by somebody, either the arresting SWAT team (yes, he was waiting at his front door, naked, for the SWAT team), the judge, the lawyers or somebody.  Apparently, I live a sheltered life.

The acting wasn't great, but it wasn't bad.  Butler was his normal self, which makes accepting him as a genius a little difficult, but not impossible.  Foxx plays a lawyer that isn't nice, but he is competent here.  The supporting actors are fine, I guess.  Colm Meaney, Bruce McGill, and Leslie Bibb have all had better roles in their careers, but their work here is nothing to be ashamed of. This doesn't do much to recommend the directorial talents of F. Gary Gray, but like his other films (The Italian Job, Friday), this films ends up resting on the charisma of its stars.

The biggest problem for me was the characters.  The problem is that the two major characters are unsympathetic.  Butler's character is driven by revenge.  He doesn't want to only kill those responsible for the death of his family, but those that failed to see his view of justice fulfilled.  Okay, that's not too bad.  He's a sympathetic villain (at least, as long as his victims were convicted criminals), making a political point, but he's still a villain.  Jamie Foxx is an ADA with his eyes set on a fabulous career; he made a questionable call when he accepted the killer's plea bargain, but he did it because he did not want to hurt his conviction record.  When Butler starts killing everyone, Foxx does not get any more sympathetic; he is largely an absentee dad and is generally a cocky SOB.  You want to side with Foxx, but he's stubborn and stupid throughout the film.  So, you might think that the viewer is supposed to side with Butler.  The obvious target for Butler, once he murders the killer and the accomplice, is Foxx; after all, he made the deal and told Butler to his face that it was going to happen, regardless of Butler's feelings.  But no, Butler car bombs half a dozen people in the District Attorney's office that had nothing to do with his case.  He killed his targets' chauffeurs and protection details.  That, by any definition, goes beyond the notion of justice and makes Butler at least as bad as the men that killed his family.  Foxx is not as morally reprehensible as Butler, but he does not learn a lesson or admit guilt, so his character is still a cocky SOB.

If this film was taking a stance on vigilante justice, I might be able to understand the shades of gray with the main characters.  It doesn't, though; any point it might be trying to make is nullified by the ending.  Foxx never apologizes for letting a criminal off easy and Butler never admits that killing lawyers and judges is sometimes bad.  The ending actually makes such complaints moot, since Foxx's actions are about as far from the right choice as I can imagine.  With neither character having a developmental arc to their character's feelings on the issue in question, there's no drama.  No drama, a lack of creativity and sub-par action make this a bad movie.