Samuel L. Jackson’s brief cameo at the end of Iron Man in 2008 forever changed the possibilities for superhero films. No longer did every franchise have to be a distinct entity – multiple movies could now take place in the same fictional universe, and the collective imagination of fans everywhere exploded at the potential for a massive crossover event bringing everyone together in one film.

With The Avengers, Marvel has achieved a seemingly impossible task: not only did they spend years building the foundation that supports this film by bringing together A-list stars from different franchises, but they managed to turn a project that could have collapsed under the pressure of its own ambition into one of the most crowd-pleasing superhero movies ever created.

Look no further than the 2002 series “Firefly” and its spinoff film Serenity for proof that Joss Whedon was the perfect choice to corral all of these monumental heroes into one storyline. Whedon is one of the best writers in the business, and he really excels at crafting meaningful relationships among ensemble casts and writing strong female characters, two things that were a requirement for a successful film adaptation of The Avengers. He was helped here by a terrific stable of actors, veterans of the industry who understand one of Marvel’s greatest strengths in these properties: the ability to keep the story critical to the film but allow enough humor that it won’t suffocate under its own seriousness.

The character work in The Avengers is fantastic, especially considering this particular team-up is jam-packed with characters that have already had entire films devoted to their singular adventures. Whedon gives each of them multiple moments to shine, and everything that we loved about them in previous films is on display here (and oftentimes it’s even improved). Even in scenes near the beginning of the film that contain massive amounts of setup and exposition, he manages to insert little “Whedonisms” to lighten the mood; there’s a gag with a $10 bet between Captain America and Nick Fury that’s a really small moment overall, but it brings a lot of humor to a sequence where people are just sitting around spouting information. Tony Stark has never been wittier, and Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner actually has a personality outside of sulking in corners and fighting the beast inside him. (The Hulk is funny this time, too!) Natasha Romanoff is far better drawn than she was in the disastrous Iron Man 2, so ScarJo fans can rest easy.

The action sequences are spectacular and choreographed so that we know where our heroes are at all times. (That in itself is a pretty incredible feat because the sheer scope of this movie is so huge.) The climax is breathtakingly constructed, mixing spectacle and destruction with legitimate character moments and not letting the (admittedly awesome) visual effects take over the movie. There are memorable setpieces spaced throughout the movie, resulting in easily the most entertaining Marvel film so far.

Because there is so much ground to cover, I did feel a little like Loki’s villainous intentions were a bit unclear. He’s working with some sort of alien race, but we don’t ever find out why the destruction of Earth is so paramount to their greater mission. Also, how did Thor even arrive on Earth for this movie? At the end of Thor, they establish that the bifrost has been destroyed. I understand how things wrap up at the end of The Avengers, with the Tesseract from Captain America playing a key role in the travel element, but there was so much happening that they didn’t have time to get into the hows and whys of things like that. Granted, I’m not sure that I would have wanted them to if it meant cutting out anything from what we see in the final film; it’s easy to see how Whedon’s first cut was over three hours long, and I’d love to see that movie in its entirety at some point if it ever gets released.

But ultimately, the few tiny gripes I have are cancelled out by the sheer geeky thrills in this movie. Marvel is the new Babe Ruth: they called their shot, and freaking blasted it out of the park. At long last, The Avengers finally came together on screen and, thanks to the only man who could have made it succeed, it surpassed all the hype. I probably don’t need to tell you that this film deserves to be seen on the big screen to get the full impact, but I guess I just did (and you can skip the 3D – it’s passable, but not great). The Avengers is everything I wanted it to be and more, and I sincerely hope that a few years from now I’ll be writing about The Avengers 2 written and directed by Joss Whedon. But until then, we can thank him for giving audiences the most fun movie of 2012. Until next time…

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We saw the first poster yesterday, and now The Weinstein Company has released one giant plot summary for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained which talks us through the story, cast, and characters.

You can read it in full below:

Set in the South two years before the Civil War, DJANGO UNCHAINED stars Academy Award®-winner Jamie Foxx as Django, a slave whose brutal history with his former owners lands him face-to-face with German-born bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Academy Award®-winner Christoph Waltz). Schultz is on the trail of the murderous Brittle brothers, and only Django can lead him to his bounty. The unorthodox Schultz acquires Django with a promise to free him upon the capture of the Brittles – dead or alive.

Success leads Schultz to free Django, though the two men choose not to go their separate ways. Instead, Schultz seeks out the South’s most wanted criminals with Django by his side. Honing vital hunting skills, Django remains focused on one goal: finding and rescuing Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), the wife he lost to the slave trade long ago.

Django and Schultz’s search ultimately leads them to Calvin Candie (Academy Award®-nominee Leonardo DiCaprio), the proprietor of “Candyland,” an infamous plantation where slaves are groomed by trainer Ace Woody (Kurt Russell) to battle each other for sport. Exploring the compound under false pretenses, Django and Schultz arouse the suspicion of Stephen (Academy Award®-nominee Samuel L. Jackson), Candie’s trusted house slave. Their moves are marked, and a treacherous organization closes in on them. If Django and Schultz are to escape with Broomhilda, they must choose between independence and solidarity, between sacrifice and survival…

Written and directed by Academy Award®-winner Quentin Tarantino, DJANGO UNCHAINED is produced by Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin and Pilar Savone. The executive producers are Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Michael Shamberg, Shannon McIntosh, and James Skotchdopole. DJANGO UNCHAINED will be released in the U.S. on December 25, 2012, and internationally by Sony Pictures.

It seems the marketing campaign is just getting started, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a teaser trailer sometime soon. The plan may be to attach it to one of the upcoming summer films.

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Joss Whedon’s The Avengers is unquestionably one of the most highly anticipated movies of 2012, and it might even have a legitimate shot at being one of the most anticipated films of all time. The way this movie came together is unprecedented, and now Marvel has teamed with Norton (not Edward, the antivirus company) to trace the origins of this superhero team-up film, featuring quick interviews with all of the major stars and even Whedon himself.

Here’s the official synopsis:

Marvel Studios presents in association with Paramount Pictures “Marvel’s The Avengers”–the Super Hero team up of a lifetime, featuring iconic Marvel Super Heroes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson, and directed by Joss Whedon, “Marvel’s The Avengers” is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963 and a comics institution ever since. Prepare yourself for an exciting event movie, packed with action and spectacular special effects, when “Marvel’s The Avengers” assemble in summer 2012. In “Marvel’s The Avengers,” superheroes team up to pull the world back from the brink of disaster when an unexpected enemy threatens global security.

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The German arm of Marvel has released a new trailer for Joss Whedon’s The Avengers. It’s similar to the teaser trailer we got earlier this year, but contains new footage of Black Widow and Bruce Banner meeting and a few new action shots. Those who don’t speak German probably won’t be able to understand it, but it’s still worth a watch.

From De.Marvel (via CBM):

The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon, will star Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) and will be released May 4th, 2012.

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After offering Will Smith the lead, and considering Idris Elba, Terrence Howard and Chris Tucker, Quentin Tarantino and The Weinstein Company began talks last month with Oscar winning actor Jamie Foxx (Ray, Collateral) to star in Django Unchained.

Now in a recent interview Foxx confirmed that he’ll be part of the film, and explained briefly why he wanted the role.

From CNN:

“I think, just to be able to work with Quentin Tarantino and Samuel Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and to be able to tell a story that needs to be told,” he said of why he agreed to the role. “If you’re a fan of ‘Inglorious Basterds,’ I mean, you know.. It’s just amazing. It should be [an] amazing [thing].”

Django is a freed slave, who, under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) becomes a bad-ass bounty hunter himself, and after assisting Waltz in taking down some bad guys for profit, is helped by Waltz in tracking down his slave wife and liberating her from an evil plantation owner (Leonardo DiCario). Samuel L. Jackson will play DiCario’s slave, Stephen, while Kerry Washington, who starred opposite Jamie Foxx in Ray, is in talks to play Django’s wife Broomhilda.

Filming will begin in November and The Weinstein Company has given Django Unchained a December 25, 2012 release date.

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Earlier this week we heard that Quentin Tarantino had handed in the script for his next movie, Django Unchained, to The Weinstein Company. No start or release dates have been set, but casting is now under-way as Tarantino apparently wants Will ‘aw hell naw’ Smith to play the lead role in the film.

From THR:

Will Smith has emerged as the frontrunner to star in Quentin Tarantino’s next film, a spaghetti Western about a slave in the Old South who teams with a German bounty hunter to search for his wife. Tarantino stalwarts Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz also are circling key parts.

Sources say Tarantino would like Smith to star in the film, the script for which has been making the rounds in recent days to wide acclaim. No official offer has been made to Smith, and any deal would of course be subject to working out finacials, which might be difficult given Smith’s status as one of Hollywood’s few sure-thing stars.

Meanwhile Variety says “Smith would be willing to give up his usual $20 million salary for the chance to tackle different, more controversial material”, so it’s certainly a possibility. The trade also mentions Quentin originally wrote the role of Dr. Schultz for Leonardo DiCaprio, but the actor passed, so he decided to re-team with Waltz instead. Brad Pitt was also said to have been offered “one of the numerous juicy supporting roles”, but Pitt obviously wasn’t interested (not when he can be leading other films).

Quentin Tarantino + Will Smith + Samuel L. Jackson + Christoph Waltz is certainly a winning combination. Hopefully we get confirmation of their involvement soon, and details on the other cast members.

Here’s the synopsis for Django Unchained (potential spoilers):

Django is a freed slave, who, under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter (played by Christopher Waltz the evil Nazi officer in Inglorious Basterds) becomes a bad-ass bounty hunter himself, and after assisting Waltz in taking down some bad guys for profit, is helped by Waltz in tracking down his slave wife and liberating her from an evil plantation owner.

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When Adam McKay and Will Ferrell release a film, it’s pretty clear what the audience can expect. But I am always pleasantly surprised with how high their movies rise above gimmicky plot descriptions and provide something a bit more than simply what’s on the surface. Ferrell himself has become something of a joke over the past few years, alternatively starring in muck like Semi-Pro, head-scratchers like Land of the Lost, and throwing the occasional dramatic curveball in the mix with a film like Stranger Than Fiction. But it’s his work with McKay that has already come to shape comedy in this millennium, with Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, and – most importantly – Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy becoming instant classics in the process. Now, The Other Guys can confidently be added to that list – not as a blemish on an otherwise-impressive track record, but as another exuberant entry into their body of work.

In the wake of two New York City supercops (Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson), Detectives Allen Gamble (Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Wahlberg) are “the other guys”: desk cops who do all of the paperwork while the supercops take all the fame and glory. Gamble is content with his position, but Hoitz – a former up-and-comer who can’t live down a certain traumatic event in his past – yearns for the opportunity to take to the streets and be a “real” police officer. When the deskcop duo take matters into their own hands, things begin to heat up very quickly.

Like Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz before it, The Other Guys examines the psyche of a few regular guys in a profession constantly romanticized by the media. (How many police procedurals are on television these days?) The film comments on that idolization directly through the performances of Jackson and Johnson, who embrace their power-hungry nature while dodging questions about causing twelve million dollars in city property damage to nab a bad guy committing a crime considered a misdemeanor in some states. What if Lethal Weapon‘s Riggs and Murtaugh let their status go to their heads?, the movie asks.

I don’t have many problems with this movie, but I’ll raise my issues with it now. The inconsistency of the world slightly bothered me. Early on, the insane action moves of Jackson and Johnson seem to set us in a world where anything can happen, where cars always land right-side-up and where the good guys can never get hurt. Within the first few minutes of the film, that notion is shattered (in comedic fashion, of course), and the world seems to revert to a “real” place, where gravity exists in its proper form and everything functions as it should.

I would have been fine if this shift in tone was the only one to occur in the movie, but McKay and co-writer Chris Henchy decided to add another shift near the end of the film, in which slow motion gun battles look really cool but the reality they spent the entire movie crafting is destroyed. There’s even a sequence (seen in the trailers) in which Ferrell and Wahlberg react “realistically” to an exploding building, calling out action filmmakers everywhere for the whole “Cool Guys Don’t Look At Explosions” trend. But I can’t take these criticisms seriously when the film itself breaks its own rules so blatantly. Hot Fuzz avoids this problem and has a much more fun conclusion because it doesn’t spend so much time establishing their world as a “real” place, so we can enjoy watching things get exponentially more ridiculous as that film progresses. With The Other Guys, the conclusion didn’t play as well for me because it just didn’t make sense with what had come before.

That I haven’t yet mentioned how funny the film is should be a testament to its quality. Comedy, as we all know, is extremely subjective. I can’t possibly tell you if you’re going to think this movie is funny (I won’t pretend to be able to read your mind), but I can tell you that I thought it was incredibly comical. The first two thirds of this film had me cracking up – a highlight includes a speech regarding a lion in the ocean – even if the humor in the final act suffered a bit in favor of wrapping up plot points. Wahlberg and Ferrell have a natural chemistry that is hard to capture on the big screen, but just as I picture the Channel 4 News Team from Anchorman working together for years before the events of that film, I can easily see Allen and Terry before we catch up to them when The Other Guys begins. The laughs are consistent throughout the film, a refreshing change from Get Him To The Greek and Hot Tub Time Machine (the other two mainstream comedies I’ve seen this year), and are enough for me to say The Other Guys is easily the funniest movie I’ve seen this year.

I’ve already hinted that this film works on multiple levels, and there is far more going on here than can be gleaned from the premise alone. One particular aspect I’d like to bring up is the relationship between Ferrell’s Allen Gamble and his wife Sheila, played by Eva Mendes (who was effective and humorous). Allen constantly downplays Sheila’s beauty, and at some points gets downright mean, talking about how bad she looks as they sit around the dinner table with Wahlberg’s Terry Hoitz. These scenes are played for comedy and are actually very funny (because, obviously, Eva Mendes is gorgeous), but a lesser movie would have left it at that and moved on. The Other Guys once again elevates above similar movies in the genre because it actually addresses this aspect head on: late in the film, Allen apologizes to Sheila for his behavior and admits that he talks down to her because he’s afraid if he acknowledges her beauty, she’d leave him. This glimmer of seriousness gives us a glimpse into some actual truth – I’m sure this type of relationship (and the reasoning behind it) is happening on a daily basis in the real world. By directly engaging this part of the film instead of breezing over it, the film earned more respect from me and provides us with something more to chew on than simply the comedy it provides.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the performances of the other supporting actors. Michael Keaton, an underrated and highly underused actor, was highly entertaining as the TLC-quoting police captain. Steve Coogan (who appeared very briefly in Hot Fuzz, actually) was adequate as the villain, but didn’t break any new ground. Rob Riggle, Damon Wayans Jr., Ray Stevenson, Andy Buckley, Rob Huebel, and personal UCB favorite Ben Schwartz all appeared briefly and added to the impressive supporting cast. Even director Adam McKay made a cameo appearance as Dirty Mike, a character you won’t soon forget if you’ve seen the film.

The Other Guys is a great comedy, and easily one of Will Ferrell’s best films in the past five years. The comedy and drama work well, and there’s enough story to separate the film from its gimmicky Ferrell contemporaries. The movie is also a pretty fantastic addition to the buddy cop genre, touching on the standard conventions but never delving into eye-rolling territory by consenting to them. If you’re looking for laughs, I think this is the best 2010 has to offer. Until next time…

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A teaser trailer for The Avengers was shown at Comic-Con last month and it has now found its way online. It doesn’t show much as filming hasn’t even started yet, however we do get a voice-over by Samuel L. Jackson and another look at The Avengers logo.

Watch below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lRMVeV4Yyk

The Avengers will star Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Samuel L.Jackson (Nick Fury), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) and will be directed by Joss Whedon.

Filming will begin early next year for a May 2012 release.

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Following the panels for Thor and Captain America at Comic-Con Marvel did what we heard they might do: they assembled The Avengers!

Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Samuel L.Jackson (Nick Fury), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) and director Joss Whedon all took to the stage and gave us our first look at the The Avengers.

You can watch the event below:

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Like its predecessor, Iron Man 2 officially kicks off the summer movie season. Some of the biggest stars in Hollywood suited up for this comic book movie adaptation, but did it live up to the amazingly high standards set by the first film?

[Extremely minor spoilers after the jump.]

I think Iron Man 2 suffered from a case of overactive marketing. Add up all of the various trailers and television spots for this movie, and it basically takes us chronologically scene by scene through the entire film. There’s no sense of wonder that the first film evoked, no mystery left for us to discover. If you go back and rewatch the first Iron Man trailer, you’ll see that they don’t actually show Stark doing much in the traditional Iron Man suit except flying. This time around, they took the exact opposite approach: by showing us every action scene in the trailer, the audience is unable to connect with the story and is instead left playing the “well, we know where this is going” game.

Sure, you could argue that in today’s over-saturated media marketplace, we’re bound to see big scenes in trailers and TV spots. But IM2 showed its hand early, giving away all its secrets and (if you’ll allow the continued metaphor) leaving the final trick to fall a bit flat since all the magic had been revealed. Even if they had just left us one surprise (Iron Man’s slick new suitcase suit at the end of the grand prix scene, for example), perhaps it would have been enough for us to again experience that magical feeling the first film captured so well. The marketing department even went as far as to show us a scene in the trailer that didn’t make it into the final cut of the film (“you complete me”), and somehow they STILL had time to reveal all of the big scenes for us before we walked into the theater.

For me, the film felt like a series of missed opportunities. The only reason we know Mickey Rourke’s character’s name is Whiplash is through press releases and plot synopses before the movie came out. The word “Whiplash” is never spoken once in the entire movie. There was also no mention of the Ten Rings organization, the terrorist group responsible for Stark’s capture in the first film. With the way the original ended (the leader of that group still at large), I figured there would at least be a passing reference to their surely-nefarious activities (similar to the Scarecrow’s cameo in The Dark Knight), if not a full-on exploration into their plans in the wake of Iron Man’s rise to power.

Speaking of exploration, perhaps the biggest missed opportunity in the movie was the lack of exploration into the Pepper Potts character. I’ve never been a big fan of Gwyneth Paltrow, but she’s very likable as this character and provides a good counter-point to Stark’s ridiculous eccentricity. In the film, Tony makes Pepper the CEO of Stark Industries, which is a great chance to further explore her character and see how she reacts to the responsibilities thrust upon her. Instead, Pepper becomes perhaps the most marginalized character in the film, relegated to just one or two scenes in which all she does to convey her newfound authority is hurriedly speak to someone on the phone. By the end, she has resigned from her position, but we are never given a clear indication about the future of Stark Industries; is Tony back as the CEO, or does the job still belong to Pepper? Favreau is content with zooming out while they’re having this discussion, and the question is left unanswered. (Granted, from what we’ve seen so far, Tony’s duties as CEO took a backseat to his work as Iron Man so it’s not REALLY that important an issue – but a bit of clarification would have been nice.)

The character of Tony Stark has been altered dramatically. In the six months between the events of the first film and the start of this one, Stark’s cockiness has been brought to its logical conclusion. He’s revealed to the world that he’s Iron Man, which is seemingly enough to justify him turning into a total jackass. His trademark swagger and witty banter seems much more malicious here, and Stark seems almost vindictive, going out of his way to bring people down and make them look like idiots all around him. There’s also the alcohol abuse: not the full-on “Demon in a Bottle” examination once rumored for the project, but instead a birthday party scene which is basically an excuse for an excessive amount of useless CGI fighting between Iron Man and War Machine. The entire depiction of Stark reminded me of the titular character in Rocky III: high from his heavyweight titles, overexposed, and an altered version of the lovable boxer we saw in previous films.

While the movie doesn’t quite venture into Spider-Man 3 territory, it does introduce multiple new characters and features two new villains. Mickey Rourke plays Ivan Vanko, a Russian expatriate with an inexplicable affinity for cockatoos and a Stark-like ability to engineer electronics and robotics. Considering Vanko was raised in Russia by a drunk, his talent is theoretically more impressive than that of Tony Stark, who, while a notable child prodigy, was unquestionably raised in an environment more conducive to their brand of sophisticated technical knowledge. It’s too bad Iron Man 2 isn’t interested in exploring these theoretical situations; instead of being an interesting character, Vanko is depicted as an essentially mute guy who, while certainly looking the part of a villain, is actually a pretty terrible one. Rourke doesn’t help matters any as an actor, imbuing Vanko with about as much personality as my computer desk and, in his opening scene, going so far over the top with his bellowing yell that it elicited laughter from me instead of sympathy.

Sam Rockwell (fresh in my mind from his fantastic performance in 2009′s Moon) fared a bit better as Justin Hammer, Stark’s industrial rival and the Negaduck to Stark’s Darkwing. He was also a bit over the top, but that trait seemed to fit better with his character. An egomaniac obsessed with beating Iron Man at his own game, Hammer is a charismatic dude (with some sweet dance moves) who spends practically half of the movie picking up Tony’s sloppy seconds (including that “piece from Vanity Fair”). He might be a bit crazy, but he just wants to one-up Stark in any way possible, so he thinks teaming up with Vanko will be the solution to his problems. I’ll avoid any big spoilers, but it’s safe to say that Vanko is a bit smarter than he appears.

Don Cheadle replaces Terrence Howard as James “Rhodey” Rhodes this time around, and I thought he filled the role without missing a beat. While I prefer Howard’s depiction of the character, Cheadle more than held his own and was easily capable of acting against Downey. And yes, as we saw exhaustively in the trailer, War Machine is featured pretty heavily in Iron Man 2. Cheadle seems to have fun with the character, but Howard’s smirk when he says “next time” to the silver suit in the original film makes me a bit sad that he wasn’t able to fulfill his own prophesy.

The most surprising part of the film was Scarlett Johansson, who actually wasn’t bad as Black Widow. Let’s face it – she’s got the looks, but she doesn’t always deliver in the acting department. She doesn’t have many lines here, but her delivery was sincere and I bought her in the role. She definitely has the physicality for the little bit of action the character performs (also given away in the trailer), a “female kicking ass in a hallway” scene thematically similar to a scene we just saw in Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass but not nearly as brutal. Despite some strange directorial choices in that scene with regards to overhead shots and distracting editing, she still comes out with the desired effect: looking badass.

In keeping with the “missed opportunities” theme, we have a small appearance by Samuel L. Jackson as S.H.I.E.L.D. chief Nick Fury, who guides Stark in the right direction for one or two scenes and then is absent for the rest of the movie. I realize he’s a minor character, but I would like to see a brief diversion into that character’s mind and gotten to know him a little bit. He’s going to pop up in other Marvel films until The Avengers comes out, but until then he’ll most likely be seen in a small capacity like this and I doubt any screenwriter will devote enough time to get to know this character when they’ve got a huge hero to build their stories around. When you think about it, we know almost the same now about the Avenger Initiative as we did with Fury’s brief post-credits mention of it at the end of the original Iron Man. We hear that Iron Man is recommended for a slot on the team, but Tony Stark is not – and then we aren’t allowed any further insight into the potential consequences of what that might mean.

Maybe it’s just me, but I felt like this entire movie was not as well-directed as the first one – strange, considering Jon Favreau was at the helm for both entries. In Iron Man 2, there is a long list of decisions that I simply didn’t agree with. The first-person POV scene walking through the crowd was dizzying and unnecessary, as were the wild camera movements in our introduction to Iron Man right before he lands at the Stark Expo. Instead of locking down the camera like he did in that cool shot during Stark’s first flight over the Santa Monica Pier and the Ferris wheel in the original movie, Favreau chooses to spin the camera around as Iron Man freefalls toward the ground, jarringly swinging in close to him and then far away again with no particular rhyme or reason.

I also had some issues with the Monaco race scene. Apart from the opening establishing shot of Monaco – a Dark Knight-esque helicopter shot that gorgeously reveals the layout of the city below – I thought the whole race sequence was not very well done at all. There wasn’t a single POV shot from the front of the car, which seems like a no-brainer if you’re trying to convey the feeling Stark is having of speeding down the track. Instead, Favreau places the camera high above the action and we look down on it passively and detached from the action. The sense of speed was poorly translated, which was yet another missed opportunity since we don’t see Indy car races in film very often.

Let’s also not forget that Whiplash destroys a car, and then – with no protection, mind you – is literally engulfed in flames as he pulls a “cool guys don’t look at explosions” and walks out unscathed on the other end. What was his endgame there? In yet another comparison to The Dark Knight (I know, I know, but they just keep coming to me), The Joker allowed himself to be captured, setting up that great jail interrogation scene but also thinking ahead enough to engineer his own escape. Writer Justin Theroux tries to emulate that pattern, but falls short when we realize that Whiplash just wants to “make God bleed” and…that’s it. He’s got no game plan after that, he’s just hoping that someone else who hates Iron Man will bust him out of prison. Of course, Justin Hammer plays right into his hands, but Whiplash’s plan seems much more thrown together than the calculated brilliance of The Joker’s.

This brings up perhaps my most basic criticism of the movie. If Whiplash’s tentacles are approximately 20 feet long, why doesn’t Iron Man, I don’t know, just take a few steps back? Or maybe – and bear with me here, because I realize this suggestion might be too unbelievable – maybe he could freaking FLY AROUND HIM blasting Whiplash with pulse beams all day long while he swings in vain down on the ground. I can’t comprehend how someone as “smart” as Tony Stark would see that the guy has a limited reach and say, “you know what? I’m going to get in close with this dude and see how that works out for me.” Mind-boggling.

I know if I was still a kid, I’d love this movie simply because it has more Iron Man fight scenes than the first one. But that argument no longer holds true for me now that I’m an adult. It’s the same feeling I got when watching Louis Letterier’s The Incredible Hulk – I enjoyed the sequences with Ed Norton as Bruce Banner far more than I did watching a CGI Hulk smashing things. Comic book films have done a great job of locking down A-list dramatic actors in the past few years, and my theory is we should be allowed to watch them work. Let them earn their massive paychecks.

To be fair, you’ll have to take that last paragraph with a grain of salt. I’ll admit (as I did in my review of the first film) that I’ve never read an Iron Man comic or been a fan of the character before I saw Favreau’s 2008 film, so perhaps I’d have been more excited to see a CGI Iron Man blowing up CGI drones if I were passionate about the character and grew up imagining these sequences on the big screen. But since that isn’t the case for me personally, I ended up coming down a bit hard on this film.

Despite my criticisms, I’d still recommend checking this out. It’s not terrible, but I just had a lot of issues with it. If you’re looking for a good summer action flick, this is definitely a good place to start, and I’d even say it’s worth seeing in theaters (if you catch a matinée). But when Marvel follows up a great first film with a mediocre second one, they shouldn’t be surprised to hear vocal disappointment from fans and critics alike. Turn off your hype machines, lower your expectations, and you’ll have a good time. Until next time…

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