Going to have a huge box office opening, I'm surprised no one has made a topic about this movie yet.

Anyhow, I kind of agree with the various critics that it's not as good as the first one. The first act and the third act were well executed, but the middle section of the movie is poorly paced. Some people may find it boring because there's hardly any action and it's filled with a lot of character development (which I personally like). There are some scenes that fill a bit random like Nick Fury's first scene. He kind of introduces a deus ex machina to Tony, but it's not too bad. Nevertheless, I think the overall story was handled well and I'm not sure why some people say the movie is only an "Avengers setup" since I believe the movie is complete on its own.

One thing that's still weak since the first movie is the film's score (it's actually more forgettable). It's not memorable and there aren't any good leitmotifs to compliment the characters or central themes of the movie compared to Nolan's Batman films or Danny Elfman's various superhero scores (Batman, Spider-Man, Hell Boy).

I'm pretty sure Robert Downey Jr. plays a bit of himself as Tony Stark. The guy seems so natural in the role that I can't picture anyone else as Tony Stark. Originally Sam Rockwell (Justin Hammer) was considered for the role, but somehow I can't see that happening. I do wish Rourke was used a bit more as he played a great villain who's a bit more low key compared to Jeff Bridges in the first.

Lastly in regards to Scarlett Johansson's character The Black Widow, I want one. I am prepared to fight the Green Lantern/Hannibal King/Deadpool for her.

I was going to watch it yesterday but I would have been in a rush to catch the 1600 show. My wife is off Monday so I'll just go then, watch it early, and miss the crowds. Looking forward to it. Hope my boy is moderately well behaved. He loves Iron Man so it should be okay. I bought him a War Machine action figure yesterday.

I liked it.

I don't think it was a deus ex machina. I was under the impression that it was supposed to be the same element that Captain America's shield was made of.

The action was just awesome. I liked how the russian guy created camouflaged drones with light-emitting heads

I like it.
Anyone else notice the "You complete me" as Pepper throws his helmet out of the plane scene was cut?

Also, after the credits. :D:D:D

Overall I quite enjoyed this movie. Here are some non-spoilery things I thought were great:

-Scarlett Johansson kicking the crap out of Jon Favreau in the boxing ring
-The nods to Buckminster Fuller in Howard Stark's notebook and city design
-Mickey Rourke's bird
-The photon/proton/magic beam from the particle accelerator (reminded me of Half-Life )

Any spoilery things:

-Character development was pretty good, especially with Tony, who knew he was dying and had to basically alienate the people who care about him the most. Sam Rockwell was incredible as the sleazy businessman with absolutely no qualms about stealing or playing dirty in general. I could have watched an entire movie of just him and Rourke talking angrily at each other.
-Speaking of which; here's this guy who not only survived 15 years in a Russian prison, but also has the know-how to build a powersuit, and you only leave two guys to guard him? Seems like asking for trouble.
-I know I probably shouldn't criticize a comic book movie for having bad science, but if you're going to have something as silly as the entire "inventing a new element" scene, you could have at least tried to make it a bit more plausible. A specific isotope can be described by two numbers, what's with all the (admittedly cool-looking) junk about deriving the layout for the element from the scale model of the Stark Expo? Oh well, at least it had slightly more scientific merit than the food machine in "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs", and that movie is awesome too.
-How do whiplash's whips work because I want them. They're like sticky, flexible, extensible, electric lightsabers.
-Repulsors work like shock rifles; good to know

Before I get more carried away, I'll just end my post here.

Good movie, not as good as the first, but still pretty damn entertaining.

^ i want one

I read an interview that said they were a major influence.

I think Scarlett Johansson had the best fight scenes.

Other than that, I was pretty disappointed. The action was pretty, but the story obstacles all seemed pretty minor.

I want to do what the emoticon that Roger Spruce is displaying to Scarlet Johansson. SHE IS ****ING HOT.

I for one found the movie to be on par with the first installment. Sure the air of freshness that the first presented was gone, but it was replaced with an excellent cast of characters (Rhodey +1), good action sequences, great nudges at the avenger franchisea and excellent humor. And Scarlett Johansson. Not only is she quite the eye candy, I found her fight scenes to be exceptionally well choreographed. I wonder how much of it is CGI, stunt double and pure Scarlett.

One of my rare gripes with the movie is that I'd have loved to see more combat between Whiplash, Ironman and Warmachine. That bit was over quicker than I'd have liked.

Oddly enough, I didn't like Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury at all.

It was okay, better than the first one but still not as good as Batman 2

I'm getting really bored with their whole "every villain in Iron Man is another guy in an Iron Man suit" thing.

*Every marvel villain has pretty much been.

I like the somewhat more realistic approach they're taking.

I love this series of Superhero movies, but it can only last so long...

Yeah, then they'll reboot it with cheaper actors.

Every Marvel villian has pretty much been what?

Yeah, as opposed to a guy in a clown suit...

Well, TDK was a way better movie

I'm sure it probably is. I haven't had a chance to see Iron Man 2 yet. Probably later this week.

The Dark Knight was good but it's a totally different type of movie. A Batman crime drama as opposed to a sci-fi action flick.

Did anyone notice that when they said "All the big celebrities are here...look here's Larry King," Larry King was actually Stan Lee dressed like Larry King?

cell phone vision

Yeah. I guess they're going to start doing that all the time now

They did that in the first Iron Man, only he was dressed as someone else.

That's what I'm-a-sayin'

P.S., what happened after the credits?

They found Thor

They've already been doing that. He was in Xmen: Last Stand, both Fantastic Fours, at least one Spiderman, etc.

I never replied to that because I thought it was sarcasm. Let's see, of the modern Marvel films, I've seen him in three Spider-Man films, two X-Men films, two Iron Man films, two Hulk films, two Fantastic Four films, and one Daredevil film. Most pretty blatant.

That's good to know. The cocksucker running the theater stopped the show about five seconds into the credits.

Wow, language? That is rude, though. I always wonder if that's going to happen to me when I'm waiting for some unknown treat at the end of the credits.

's Hammer.

Not Thor. Thor finds himself.

We've discussed this at length.

In reality, I think the retarded science in Dark Knight was the major flaw that prevented it from being better than Iron Man. The stupid cell phone vision and bullet fingerprint bs. It's just a little much.

Tony Stark, on the other hand, can build anything and make it believable. He's the smartest man on the planet, and has unlimited resources.

Iron Man would have been more believable if they worked nanotechnology into the plot. Because that's pretty much the only way you'd ever be able to make a suit do those crazy things.

Well, it's never specifically mentioned what kind of tech he uses for the suit. He just uses the latest tech.

As opposed to, you know, sonar cell phones and reconstructed bullets with fingerprints.

actually it was an entire cartridge (casing and bullet.)


batman reconstructed the casing, bullet, and the thumbprint on the casing from bullet fragments.

even if you had an effectively infinite amount of power and whatever captain america's shield is made of?

Yeah, not to mention the method of reconstructing it. Just fire a bunch of bullets into bricks and see which one leaves the most similar whole. Then "scan it" with a computer... and the computer will make a wiggly plane readout and then reconstruct it.