Iron Man 2 made the MCU look more viable, even as it botched the introduction of a key player
Film Features The Marvel Moment
“There was an idea… to bring together a group of remarkable people. To see if we could become something more. So when they needed us, we could fight the battles that they never could.”
That mission statement, heard over the Avengers: Infinity War trailer, hearkens back to 2010’s Iron Man 2, which, as our own review noted, has “at least two sequels’ worth of incident” crammed into it. Although it fails in the villain and spectacle department, Jon Favreau’s second installment in the franchise expands the Avengers initiative, both the one in story and the one gaining traction in Marvel Studios’ executive offices. Some light groundwork had been done in Jon Favreau’s Iron Man, which introduced S.H.I.E.L.D director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg). The Incredible Hulk, although poised to extend the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ended up being a non-starter; Mark Ruffalo, who replaced Edward Norton as Bruce Banner in The Avengers, has made the role his own, but the solo Hulk franchise hasn’t gone anywhere.
But just as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) popping up next to Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) in the Hulk post-credits scene gave the cinematic universe-building some much-needed momentum, Iron Man 2 brought several future players and larger narratives of the MCU into focus. Agent Coulson remains mostly on the periphery, but that’s in part due to the hammer-related situation developing in New Mexico. It’s a smart, very economical bit of storytelling from Favreau and writer Justin Theroux—through a few one-sided phone calls, Coulson becomes a part of two franchises, and well on his way to heading up his own series.
A couple of tête-à-têtes between Fury and Tony add a few more layers to both characters—we learn Fury is as much a visionary as Tony and the latter’s father, Howard Stark, who was “about to kick off an energy race that was going to dwarf the arms race.” His self-interests are as plain as day, but Fury becomes more than a shadowy figure who occasionally negs Iron Man; he demonstrates he’s just as invested in big-picture thinking as Howard and his budding futurist son. Tony, meanwhile, is placed much more firmly in his father’s footsteps, something he’d been ambivalent about up until this point. He upgrades his power source, the arc reactor, which is first a clean-energy beacon, then a bulls-eye for alien invaders in The Avengers. The arc reactor is what brings Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) into Tony’s orbit—his father Anton co-designed it with Howard Stark—and it’s also some alluring loot for The Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming, which also features Tony Stark and Happy Hogan (Favreau).
The world-building is purposeful, mostly subtle, and a far cry from the franchise growing pains of Avengers: Age Of Ultron. But the introduction of Natalie Rushman, a.k.a Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow (in all three cases, Scarlett Johansson) leaves a lot to be desired. Over the course of her 10 film appearances, we’ve come to see Black Widow as a hyper-competent and vital member of the Avengers, but Iron Man 2 focuses far too much on her femme fatale side. “Natalie” is Natasha’s Stark Industries cover, allowing her to make a detailed assessment of how Tony/Iron Man would fare in a team environment like, say, the Avengers Initiative. She provides keen and unflinching analysis of Tony’s “textbook narcissism,” and handily deals with Hammer goons before showing off some impressive hacking skills; she’s also frequently shot at an angle that’s best described as “down her blouse.” Not long after she’s literally introduced as a “potentially very expensive sexual harassment lawsuit,” we do get Natalie’s full resume, including language proficiencies, interest in world affairs, and a portfolio from her modeling days. This exploration of the full range of Natalie/Natasha’s assets is important and grounded in the source material; even the lingerie model stuff, which was likely a cover for a mission in Tokyo, helps establish how she was able to infiltrate Tony’s organization. Then this happens:
Again, Tony (and everyone else) is frequently blindsided by Natasha’s capabilities, but with those three words—“I want one”—the inconsistent and occasionally downright disappointing treatment of the character begins. When she reemerges as Agent Romanoff, she enters the frame ass-first. In the third act, she undresses in the back of Happy’s car as he gawks at her in the rearview mirror. Black Widow fares much better in later films, including two Captain America movies and The Avengers, before essentially being reduced to a love interest in Avengers: Age Of Ultron (cool motorcycle sequence aside)—clearly her solo outing has a lot of ground to recover. But though Iron Man 2 provides a wobbly platform for one future Avenger, it did make the the future of the wider MCU look a lot brighter.
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Iron Man 2 is, of course, very bad, but I still think the Iron Man briefcase is one of the cooler moments in the franchise. Later movies got way over the top with Iron Man’s armour, with them automatically latching onto him or shooting out of a satellite, but the briefcase suit is a far more interesting emergency suit than any of those.
I think it’s more “Meh” than very bad. It’s actually amazing they haven’t made a movie I wanted to skip during my recent re-watch of them all. This and Thor 2 aren’t great but they’re still totally watchable and have moments.
They’re all watchable on a sufficiently wrong flight.
You’d have to pay me to sit through an Ant-Man movie again.
To this day, Thor 2 is the only one I haven’t rewatched. I don’t remember it being bad, I just don’t remember it much at all.Iron Man 2 at least has the Tony / Pepper dynamic and they alone are worth the watch.
Unfortunately, the best Tony/Pepper moment in IM2 was only in the trailer.“Go get ‘em, boss.”“You complete me…”
To this day, Thor 2 is the only one I haven’t rewatched. I don’t remember it being bad, I just don’t remember it much at all.Iron Man 2 at least has the Tony / Pepper dynamic and they alone are worth the watch. Thor 2 and Thor are the only two I don’t actually own on disc (i.e. purchased), which is kinda my metric. It also took me a long time to buy The Incredible Hulk, but it grew on me and I got it cheap from Amazon. The other reason I rank IM2 highter than some people is that I love Sam Rockwell and I love his Justin Hammer. 🙂 Thor 2 is still my least favorite of all the movies.
What about Hulk?
It’s one of only two I never saw in the first place along with the Hulk movie.
I’d be very tempted to skip Ant-Man and Wasp.
No, it’s geuninely terrible…poor Sam Rockwell, getting dragged into that Favreau shit show
I mean if you consider that terrible what words do you save for something like F4antastic or X-Men Origins: Wolverine?
You watched Incredible Hulk?
Yes! I was actually curious about that one cause I’d only seen it once and wanted to see how much Hulk and Ross had changed. I would now that you mention it put it slightly below Iron Man 2 and Thor 2. The opening origin sequence is probably the best part. There may be a better movie in there somewhere if they re-edited all the footage they shot, but who knows.
I can’t agree more, aside from the fact that Ed Norton in the Hulk was completely forgettable. I can honestly say I’ve seen every MCU movie at least 3-5 times (even Thor 2) and I always avoided Hulk because the reviews were bad and it sounded like a retelling of the Ang Lee movie from…2002? And that is hardly memorable either, but I’ve at least watched it twice. I finally watched Hulk late last year and have absolutely -no- recollection of what happened or even who the big bad was. Never. Watching. Again.
I think it’s always fun seeing the new ways that Tony’s armor comes into being (although I’m not sure where you go after “magic nanotech particles”), but I agree that the suitcase scene, even 9 years later, is still super awesome. Especially because at that point we were accustomed to the elaborate “lots of machine arms slowly put on/take off the armor” mechanism, which we’d seen earlier in the same movie.
Next step is he has them literally integrated into his body and they come out of him like smoky sweat, if the comics are the be followed.
“It’s not coming out! I knew I’d overdone it with the deodorant!”
The “Extremis” armor’s been replaced.It was necessary to combat Mallen, who had the Extremis virus used on him to make himself superhuman. (This was reused as Iron Man III’s main story arc, with Aldrich Killian and his Extremis virus doing the same; IM3 used the Iron Army to battle Killian instead.)
Pepper’s going to make his next suit out of the one thing more powerful than nanotech: Goop.
“You just insert this egg and when you need it, the suit will automatically form around you.”“Insert it where?”“Oh, right. I might need to make some modifications for you to use it.”
It also makes perfect character-sense that Tony’s constantly revising and dicking around with new suits and new methods.
I’m not sure where you go after “magic nanotech particles”Sure, but those magic nanotech particles are still housed in some separate unit he wears on his chest. The next step is to house them within his own body.
Rewatched Iron Man 1 yesterday, and his suit was very satisfying to watch on screen. It had heft, felt like a tank. As much as I love Infinity War, his suit in it just didn’t bring it like some of the other movies.
Something I realised a while back, and now can’t unsee… did you ever see the Lost in Space movie, with Gary Oldman and Matt le Blanc? There’s a scene in that where Space Joey activates a tactical helmet that swooshes up from nowhere to completely cover his face. It’s one of a few memorable moments from an otherwise fairly movie… and damn it if it doesn’t seem like that’s exactly where Tony got the idea for the briefcase suit from.Sure, the Stargate movie has elements of that as well, but those helmets are graceful and almost magical. The Lost in Space helmet, and the briefcase suit, feels mechanical, and tangible, and makes satisfying clunk noises when things happen.
I did see it, and immediately erased it from my memory, it was so bad. But looking back at that clip just now, that is actually a pretty cool shot, and somewhat reminiscent of the way in which Iron Man’s helmet and faceplate come up (but of course the details differ a lot).
Yeah. While I enjoy some of the things they did with the nanotech suit in Infinity War (notably, when he’s blocking an attack from Thanos and you see the particles are getting pulled from other parts of his body as the shield continues to be consumed) but overall I much prefer a more mechanical Iron Man suit. The whole “oh, it’s nanomachines that can disappear or reappear or reconfigure themselves however we want” is a little more hand-wavy than I like. I think the difficulties of having the suit vs. not having the suit is way too good of a narrative tool to abandon like they’ve done in the later movies and in the comics.
I really liked that scene too. It felt like I was watching the film equivalent of an old comic book ad for Formula One (like, one that is a comic itself).
The one downside of the briefcase is how obvious it is that Vanko is just standing right in front of him watching the whole thing, rather than stepping in and hitting him when he’s helpless.
I thinks he pinned by the car at the point of the scene.
Everybody knows it’s bad form to attack a guy mid-transformation. Otherwise Kamen Riders would be screwed.
Vanko is pinned to the wall by the car at that point in the scene. Tony’s first act once the suit is fully on is to shove the car away with his foot.
Pinned to the wall with such force that i assumed he must have mechanical legs later in the film.
This is an issue with nearly every Tony Stark appearance. Loki literally stands around and watches him take off a broken suit and mix a drink before a new suit is ready. It continues up through Infinity War when Tony does a lot of monologuing with alien invaders before putting the suit on. I get that they want as much RDJ out of the suit as possible, but the villains should be a bit more on top of this obvious weakness.
One of the things that disappointed me the most about Iron Man 2 was that the screwball comedy banter between Tony and Pepper, which was such a charming highlight of the first movie, mostly fell flat in this one. The writers tried too hard and put in too much, and it felt like they were just talking over each other all the time. It got exhausting.
I think if they’d repurposed that second act that essentially served as crossover fodder, it could have been an incredibly solid movie. Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell both chewed some great scene, and that Formula One sequence was swell. Just the attempts to tie things into the larger world were too clumsy to overlook.
And still, in terms of sheer fun factor, I actually liked it more than the first Iron Man.
The suit is cool, but the sound/mix in that scene – with Pepper and Happy screaming the whole time – just makes everything sound like panicking sheep.
I like that it still has a mechanical element to it. You want to see the suit’s moving parts.
See, IDK about VERY bad. I mean, it may very well be the weakest of the MCU films (although I could debate which is worse between IR2 and the first two Thor films), but I don’t hate it. It’s a lot better than some of the comic based movies made before and since. I certainly don’t love it, but I’ve always found it to be watchable at the very least.
I am the only person in existence who really liked Ben Affleck as Daredevil, so I guess I’m an easy mark, but I really liked all 3 Iron Man movies. The 3 Thor movies were pretty much all snoozes for me; 1 didn’t have enough conflict, 2 was boring, 3 was too uneven in tone.
I friggin hate this nanotech nonsense now where the suit isn’t even a physical thing he has to put on anymore. He can basically grow and do whatever he wants like it’s some alien shit.
I must be the only person left who actually liked IM2.
I’ve come to hate Iron Man’s suits and their ability to materialize out of nothing. The nano suit is the absolute nadir – it’s literally a magic suit that can become anything its wearer wants or needs it to be at any time, which means Tony Stark never has to meaningfully build anything ever again.
Part of what made the suit cool in the first movie or so was that it felt real – with the right materials you too could make one at home. The suitcase is cool and all but even there it makes the reality of the suit seem insubstantial.
Ironman 2 suffered from having a very poor villain (Vanko, of course, Hammer was quite fun) played by an actor that couldn’t care less. Mickey Rourke is a good actor, but I just lost respect for him in this role. Jeff Bridges didn’t exactly have the most interesting bad guy in the first one, but he gave the role his all and it elevated the whole movie.Ironman 2 is an example of a movie that has a lot of great parts that simply did not come together because the central focus – Vanko – was flat.
Iron Man 2 has flaws, but it also has a lot of really good stuff in it. Iron Man 3 is absolutely terrible, except for Trevor.
Iron Man 3 was the only one I felt insulted my intelligence.
Iron Man 3 seems to be a real love it or hate it movie. I think it’s one of the better entries (although not top 3 or anything) but I know people who think it’s one of the worst.
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been feeling alone in this opinion lately.
The entire Monte Carlo sequence is fantastic. All the way through Vanko saying “if you can make god bleed, people will cease believing in him.” Then it’s about him and his goddamn bird.
The Briefcase was a fun part, more realistic than each part having a rocket motor.
Iron Man 1 and Iron Man 2 both have great and not so great moments. I’ve always thought that a skilled edit combining the two into one movie would produce something epic.
I’d also point out that War Machine is pretty awesome in this movie as well. And Hammer is sadly overlooked as a villain, that dude was a great foil for Tony.
I probably enjoy this film a bit more than most (though it still ranks pretty low for me) but I get the sense that this was the first real tug-and-pull between director and studio. Jon Favreau had done such an incredible job with the first film – and if you watch bts videos, RDJ credits him for the success of Tony’s character as much as anyone else. But it’s like here his wants for the individual film started to get a bit lost in the needs for worldbuilding. Not entirely unlike Avengers: Age of Ultron.The Black Widow stuff is consistently gross, but unfortunately not all that surprising, even eight years ago. I mean, at that point in film/tv, most the women were still damsels/aunts/mothers, or if they were any kind of superhero themselves, inevitably sexualized. It’s actually kind of interesting (and heartening) at how swiftly the tide has been turning on that one.
This movie was ‘written’ during the writer’s strike. ‘Nuff said.
No, it wasn’t – that lasted November 2007 to February 2008, three months before the first Iron Man was released.
Isn’t it amazing watching movies from around that time though? That you knew were produced in spite of the strike? You think “Oh God, someone didn’t finish this script.”
It’s telling that you call tell Transformers 2 is appreciably worse than 1 and 3 because of the writer’s strike. So. Many. Questions.
Rotf is probably the single worst film I have ever seen in a theatre.
I have a good time with Quantum of Solace’s solution to the writer’s strike.“Car chase! Foot chase! Uh, boat chase?…PLANE CHASE!”
Is that really a thing? Like, can you watch movies from that period and determine that the poor choices were made specifically because of lack of writing quality?
?I understand what you are saying but I think it’s reasonably fair to look at some of these flicks. Anyway, in the case of QoS Craig and director have talked multiple times about shooting with basically no script. A bunch of action sequences are one solution to that problem. Also, quantum has ALL the kinds of chases and it is hilarious.
JJ’s first Trek movie was another victim of the strike.Curiously, the best victim of all was Breaking Bad, as the strike kept them from finishing out the first season the way they wanted to…killing Jesse.
JJ’s first Trek drove me crazy for a different reason: there were niggling little plot points that made no sense, but it turns out they had deleted scenes that explained almost all of them, including more time with Winona Ryder as Spock’s mother. One hand, okay, there’s explanations. But I’m still inclined to not give them credit because they still didn’t put them in the final product.
Tv shows show.it harder.Heroes season two, the back half of s3 and s4 of Galactica. The strike put a stake through some good shows.
Never has a show had a more definitive point of going from good to bad than heroes. Not even Happy Days. The moment they decided to close the door and not show the Peter/Sylar fight at the end of season one. Pretty much everything before that moment was great, and everything after it sucks. Remember badass time traveling sword wielding Hiro?
Everything about that first season is still great except for the fact that the finale was two punches.I can’tthink of many shows that were able to leave so many separate plot threads and characters together in such a cohesive manner over that many episodes.Then it literally became unwatchable within several episodes of season 2
You can see the push and pull of production battles here just like in Ultron, but there’s a lot of scenes I like in a vacuum. Like Dark Knight Rises, it doesn’t hold well as a cohesive movie, but works better moment to moment.
Favereu and Co someday could write a fantastic tell-all about this movie.
I’m sorry, what was gross about BW?She killed it in this movie.Jesus, be happy.
I don’t really mind Iron Man 2. It’s not as actively bad as say, Incredible Hulk or Thor 2. RDJ is great as always, the racetrack battle is fun and I like the increased presence of Nick Fury and SHIELD. It’s chief crime is merely being boring and unmemorable compared to it’s predecessor. Oh, and corporate interference that caused the director to quit making MCU films (see: Age of Ultron).
Meh, for all of Thor 2’s faults, it doesn’t waste Sam Rockwell. That gives it an edge for me.
Kang wouldn’t say it ‘wastes’ Sam Rockwell, since he’s the clear (only) highlight of the movie. And he dances, which is always a treat.
Sam Rockwell dancing is the highlight of this or any other movie. I could watch a GIF of that for hours on end.
I may be the only one that hated Rockwell dancing in IM2. It’s just a moment of the movie and the actor trying too damn hard, perhaps because everyone understands the story is jogging in place.
Yeah, but…that’s Hammer. That’s the character. He was ALWAYS trying too hard, because he wasn’t Tony Stark and that rankled him.
I don’t know if it was his idea or the filmmakers’ to put obvious blotches of self-tanner on his palms, but it was just glorious.
It does feel like he’s in a completely different, much more fun movie, but no, he’s not wasted.
Rockwell would be more at home in a latter-day MCU film like RAGNAROK. The early days of the MCU were a bit less goofy and freewheeling. I think GOTG and ANT-MAN changed the tempo a bit.
Come to think of it, Rockwell could have easily fit into ANT MAN 2 as a just-out-of-jail the shady arms dealer trying to get back into the game by scoring some Pymtech. (Although this would knock Walton Goggins out of his role, which would be unfortunate, because like Rockwell he can do no wrong.)
I could really see Rockwell having a role in a GotG film. He always has a slightly off-the-planet vibe to him anyway.
Do you wanna see my spaceship?
Nah, it just wastes Anthony Hopkins, Chris O’Dowd and Christopher Ecclestone.
All of those are misdemeanors compared to the felony I just presented.
….. CHRIS O’DOWD IS IN THOR 2?I mean, Eccleston is unrecognizable and pointless. I knew that.
Jane’s date.
And Zachary Levi, Jaimie Alexander And Ray Stevenson.
I forgot that Zach levi replaced the once upon a time guy only to be given two scenes across two movies.
Ragnarok pretty thoroughly wastes Levi and Stevenson as well, in fairness.
C’mon, Hopkins wasn’t a major character but he wasn’t wasted. O’Dowd was just comic relief anyway.
Eccleston was wasted, that’s for damn sure.
You’re right, he was way better in Gone in 60 Seconds….
Yeah, like with O’Dowd, these actors at the time knew they were signing up for bit parts – just happy to be in guaranteed block Buster’s. If you’re going to front Thor’s relationship with Jane, then Lokki, then his parents … his team of friends is going to suffer. That Heimdall breaks out at-all is an achievement for Idris Elba.
I completely forgot Chris O’Dowd was in that movie…
In their defense , everyone seems to enjoy wasting Eccleston.
> Anthony HopkinsI don’t know…that “oh shit!” of Anthony Hopkins as Loki as Odin in Ragnarok almost redeems it entirely.
Rockwell single-handedly saves the movie.
“I’d like to point out that that test pilot survived”.
Iron Man 2 didn’t waste Sam Rockwell either. His Justin Hammer was the best part of the movie.
You’re not wrong. Definite meh.Counterpoint: Wasted Sam Rockwell > No Sam Rockwell.
I initially read this as “Thor 2 included Sam Rockwell and did not waste him” and I was like… I clearly forgot a lot more about that movie than I thought.
I’ve probably seen Iron Man 2 more than any other MCU film, because my older son wanted to watch it over and over and over and over and over when he was 7 years old. So whatever flaws it has have been sanded away after forty or fifty repeat viewings; I can no longer be even remotely objective about it.
I’d say it’s far more ACTIVELY bad than either of the two examples you cite, which I see more often dismissed as dull or forgettable. Iron Man 2 is and in-your-face grating mess of a movie.
I was sad to see Whedon go, but now, seeing what the Russo brothers have brought to the table, I’m kind of glad he did.
The increased presence of SHIELD is one of the movie’s biggest flaws, if not THE biggest. But I agree that it’s not a complete disaster. Any film with that much Rockwell is going to be okay on some level.
This is not true of Three Billboards.
You know, I thought of that movie as I was writing my comment and realized, yeah, that’s probably the one exception. Fair point.
Yeah, I often find the vitriol for IM2 to be grossly misapplied. (IM3 was such an inferior product that I don’t understand the love it seems to generate, especially its literal deus ex machina ending..) IM2 introduced War Machine and Black Widow, expanded Fury’s role in the universe beyond an end credits stinger, and (I thought, at least) neatly set up some things for the MCU’s future when people really still wanted to know what this whole “shared universe” deal was supposed to be about. Now it feels like with the full MCU that IM2 helped create reaching its maturity, people want to look back at IM2 with the benefit of hindsight and nitpick it to death.
I really like the first half of the Hulk movie. It really falls down in the second half.
Thor 2 is WAY more fun than IM2. The final battle is Thor punching the (admittedly generic) bad guy through multiple dimensions ffs!
I’ve only seen Thor 2 once and it was on an airplane. I should give it another shot. I genuinely don’t remember what you’re describing but it sounds pretty awesome!
I’m not gonna sit here and say it’s one of the top Marvel movies but it gets shit on a lot more than it deserves.
Yeah, I don’t hate IM2 as much as some people. At least it had some entertaining moments, unlike Thor 2, which was just a dull slog. I’m not saying it was good. It’s definitely near the bottom of the MCU pile. I’m saying it had its moments.
I’ll have to watch the movie again, but I don’t remember them over-sexualizing her. A good example is her climbing into the ring. They could have easily gone for the down-blouse shot, but didn’t. The car scene is short and adds a bit of humor. Her dress before & at the birthday party is pretty standard (certainly not overtly sexual).
As for Tony’s comments.. He is a womanizer (heavily portrayed that way in IM1) so it stands to reason his behavior would not deviate. He did the same thing to Christine Everhart, asking her to lose a few hours of sleep with him. Or talking going 12 for 12 with all of the Maxim models. Or the girl at the party in Iron Man 1: Hey Tony.. remember me? Sure don’t.
I have Iron Man 2 ranked dead last in the MCU, though I finally caught most of The Incredible Hulk on TV the other day and that’s pretty stiff competition for the trailing spot. IM2 is watchable, at least, and I’m enough of a sentimental sucker that the “Howard Stark reaches across time to connect with his son” stuff works for me. But the SHIELD sub-plot is unnecessary (Natasha gets a very good introduction in The Avengers), and the Tony-Pepper banter that worked so well in the first movie comes off grating and unpleasant in this one.
Plus, it gave us John Slattery as Old Howard Stark! Anything with John Slattery in it can’t be all bad.
I disagree about IM2 being watchable, unless there’s a lot of alcohol around. I find it a grating, disjointed mess. The Incredible Hulk is a much cleaner narrative with a better thematic and character focus, which unfortunately falls flat in some spots and comes off a little too goofy in others.
With the Incredible Hulk, at least we got the Abomination as a villain.
Sam Rockwell and Gary Shandling were great in this; that AC/DC-heavy sequence of Iron Man jumping out of a plane into battle a convention center was pretty good (why does Iron Man need a plane?); and the battle with a bunch of combat-bots was noisy fun. However, Mickey Rourke was acting in a totally different movie (“I vant my bird”); the Tony/Rhodey conflict that led to War Machine should have been more emotionally charged (not simply fixed by “we good bro”); and the solution of “Howard Stark invented a new element and drafted it onto the floor plan of a state fair for his kid to find some day” is dumb as hell. All the cheescake shots of Scar Jo can’t fix this.
“Howard Stark invented a new element and drafted it onto the floor plan of a state fair for his kid to find some day”In retrospect, I realized that Howard didn’t invent a new element, but he had analyzed vibranium and knew it had astounding properties, but didn’t have the means to replicate it. And he used the floor plan as a way to hide his analysis so they wouldn’t create an incident with Wakanda.
From what Rourke has said, his part was cut to ribbons in the editing room. He was quite mad about it.
If there was a whole arc about him coming to love the new bird they brought him, I’m okay with losing that. I kind of love that he was so angry about getting the wrong bird, then in his very next fucking scene they’re bros.
The Howard Stark stuff was awful and also completely undoes Tony’s achievement for inventing the arc reactor himself. Dad did it first…uh, okay.Not unlike how the weird X-Men prequels had all the tech we assumed Xavier and Magneto invented actually given over to Kevin Bacon.
I’m not altogether sure it undoes anything. The first arc reactor was this giant thing in Stark Labs, so unless there’s a line in there that explicitly says “Tony Stark invented THIS”, it’s not established that it’s Tony’s invention. TONY built the miniaturized one in his chest IN A CAVE! OUT OF SCRAPS! But Tony’s build is based on prior work, and it’s probably his dad’s. “Always taking me to school.”
If Howard invented the big Arc Reactor at the Stark Factory, what if it was made from lessons learned while Howard was at SHIELD, working with Project Pegasus and the Tesseract? Basically the big ARC reactor is really powered somehow by the Space Stone? Bluish color, blue beam to the sky, mysterious power source, etc.
I thought that was implied. I am pretty sure the Tesseract was shown in the journal Tony was reading.
Of course we didn’t know it was the Tesseract until Captain America.Rewatching after the fact, it is definitely derived from the Tesseract.
The big arc reactor was built by Tony and Stane.
But using a design blueprinted by Howard Stark and Anton Vanko, who Howard had deported. Which is what set up the conflict between Tony Stark and Ivan Vanko, who shows up in Monaco with his own mini arc reactor.
Yeah, I completely forgot about that. Doesn’t the movie suggest that Vanko was actually right and that Stark DID steal his father’s work?
I remember it being vague enough that I wasn’t sure. I think there’s some implication that Vanko’s motivations weren’t that noble either, but the Iron Man story in general is filled with shades-of-grey compromises.
All the cheescake shots of Scar Jo can’t fix this. Ah man, you were doing so well right up until the end there. 😛
Everyone in IM2 is in a different movie. I feel like the success of the MCU is that in most films they can get a bunch of different elements to meld seamlessly, but Iron Man 2 is the great example of when that didn’t happen.
Take away all the nonsense about palladium poisoning and change it to Tony’s partying ways and how Obadiah Stane actually kept Tony in his lane and helped run the company, I think IM2 would have been a great sequel.In other words, I really just wanted a more direct adaptation of Demon in a Bottle.
I know I did. As a long time comic book reader, my mantra with regards to comic book movies has become “They didn’t make this movie for me – for some reason”
I think the threat of Tony dying, and the world he would leave behind, is supposed to be the theme of the movie.
I don’t think they nailed it – for one thing, I’m not remotely worried about a world where Justin Hammer or Ivan Vanko are unchecked, when I probably should be? – but I do think his poisoning leading to more and more self-destructive behaviors is a decent idea for a story. For better or worse, I don’t think Disney/Marvel is gonna make a movie where their popular-with-children hero is an alcoholic.
Jack Sparrow notwithstanding?
Oh, drinking is funny family fare. Drinking with consequences? Less so.
And fortunately for us all, Disney probably isn’t likely to greenlight another one of those movies any time soon. At least not with Depp.
I actually liked the idea of Whiplash being the villain. I just wanted him to have more fighting parts, and also, the final fight scene was anything but. It was so dumb. I actually like Iron Man 2 overall, but the end is such a boring thud.
A lot of what made Iron Man so fresh was that a lot of it was heavily improvised. Favreau was making big plot changes pretty late in the game, particularly when it came to the finale.
Iron Man 2 had a lot of that same energy (most of Rockwell’s screen time is pretty obviously off the top of his head, and is wonderful), but also far more characters and moving parts, plus a mandate from Marvel corporate to start laying groundwork for other Avengers movies.
It’s honestly a miracle that a production that was flying by the seat of its pants, but also had a ton of executive meddling, is even watchable.
Were there plans to keep Senator Stern around as a Senator Kelly-esque figure that were dashed by Garry Shandling’s death, or was he always a one-off character?
He shows up again in Winter Soldier. I’m not sure if we see him again after that, though. Shandling was so great for that part. Just as smarmy and slimy as can be, but he never played it for laughs.
He’s doing a convincing Ted Cruz in that role.
Stern is outed as a member of Hydra in TWS and is shown being arrested at the end of the movie. Presumably he’s in prison, or killed offscreen in the Hydra cleanup.
that AC/DC-heavy sequence of Iron Man jumping out of a plane into battle a convention center was pretty good (why does Iron Man need a plane?)
Do you know how rumpled his tuxedo would be after a long flight inside the armor? 😉
It’s weird how the stand alone Iron Man sequels don’t seem to fit into the larger MCU. At the end of Iron Man 2 Fury tells him he’s not going to be in the Avengers. The next time we see him, he’s in the Avengers without any explanation or even a line of dialogue about how that happened. At the end of Iron Man 3 he quits being Iron Man and destroys all of his suits. But there he in in Age of Ultron, being Iron Man again like that never happened.
He didn’t quit being Iron Man at the end of IM3. He just realized that the suit doesn’t define him as a person or as a hero.
No, he quit. This is explicitly referenced in Civil War, when Tony is talking to Steve about his break-up with Pepper. He says something like he quit, but then Hydra, and then Ultron, and then, and then, and then. And the truth was he doesn’t want to quit, so Pepper left.
Except he didn’t say he quit. He said he trashed his suits, which isn’t the same thing.
He says he trashed his suits because he almost lost her. But then Hydra, then Ultron, and then he never stopped, because he doesn’t actually want to stop.So he doesn’t say the word “quit”, but it’s obviously what he means. That whole piece of dialogue doesn’t make sense unless he quit/stopped at some point and upset Pepper by not actually quitting/stopping.
To be fair, it took me a while to grasp this, because the film had contradictory statements. He came to the realization that Tony Stark is the true ironman, but destroyed all his suits and promised to pepper that he’s done with suits (which implies superheroing in its entirety) by way of a big grand gesture? Yeah, that could’ve been tightened up. A lot.
In Civil War he says he was quitting when he trashed his suits.
He didn’t say that though.
OK.
Oh, come on. Tony literally says “I am Iron Man” at the end of the movie. He isn’t quitting anything.
It seemed like he was speaking in metaphor. Like, he is who is is, with or without the suit. So what he was saying is, he would continue to be himself while not needing to be Iron Man in the future. At least that’s how I read it.
Well yeah, but you could read it the other way too. His destruction of the suits and talking about using the armour as a cocoon, while throwing the chest piece over the cliff was symbolic. He doesn’t need to wear the armour to be Iron Man.“You can take away my house.
All those tricks and toys.
There is one thing you can not take away from me.
I am Iron Man.”
I always thought that Iron Man 3 ending worked best if you looked at it through the lens of the theory that Extremis served as the basis for Tony Stark’s nanotech suit. Figuring out why Extremis was unstable, figuring out how to get it out of Pepper, then buckling down and removing the arc reactor from his chest, and that whole speech at the edge of the cliff and getting in the car – it all suddenly works if you believe that Tony used the Extremis model to create his nanotech suit. He is Iron Man because (following the theory) he made the suit literally part of him. It imbues the end of the movie with tension – what happens when Pepper finds out?, etc. – that isn’t there without that plot reading.Sadly, every subsequent Marvel movie kills that theory as dead as a doornail, and so IM3 just looks stupid in retrospect. But try it out sometime – watch the ending with that theory in your head – and tell me that it doesn’t feel a bit like the writer was trying to set something up for the future.
Which leads directly into his decision to start building robots.
And that one line at the end of IM3 basically undercut the entirety of the preceding two hours. It was dumb.
I think you just misunderstood the preceding two hours.
It’s pretty on brand for Tony to destroy all the suits, and then immediately turn around and build the Iron Legion though.
He does specifically mention it in The Avengers, and is officially only brought in as a consultant to track the Tesseract, then he decides to get involved.
It’s kind-of referenced in Avengers when Coulsdon goes to meet him and Tony points out that he was turned down for it (was it that film or this when he calls it a group therapy session?). I think the inference is that that’s all well and good but there’s an killer alien god running around with a magic, mind-controlling staff and a source of unlimited power so maybe the long-form recruitment process is being shoved aside in favour of whatever team they can assemble right now.
To add, at the beginning of the The Avengers he’s ostensibly brought in as a civilian, to study Selvig’s research in order to find the tesseract, just like Banner is. At that point, he’s still clearly using the suit as a tool and a means of long distance transportation (who wouldn’t!), so when Loki is causing trouble in Stuttgart, he pops on by in full gear on his way to the Helicarrier. Later, when Hawkeye attacks, but before the aliens show up, official Avenger status goes out the window, and he plays his way into the starting lineup.
The Iron Man movies have a legitimate character arc in them which the Avengers films clumsily and frustratingly ignore or run roughshod over it out of laziness.
If I recall correctly, at the time it wasn’t definite how much (or even if) RDJ was going to be part of the Avengers movie, so they were hedging their bets with that dialogue. There was a lot of gossip in the press around the time about Marvel’s low ball contract offers to prospective cast. Mickey Rourke was pretty vocal about it, and it endangered RDJ’s contiued presence in the franchise.
You recall correctly. Marvel only ponied up for the Avengers sequels after IM3 was a massive hit. The ending, with Tony quitting the suit, worked well in case they couldn’t re-sign Downey, and gave closure to the trilogy of Iron Man movies (the credit sequence with flashbacks from the previous movies made it clear that IM3 was supposed to be considered the end of something). It should also have been a good lead in to Age of Ultron after they had Downey back under contract, with Tony destroying his suits because he’d come up with a better idea—Ultron. How they botched that transition remains a mystery to me.
If that’s what they were going for, they could have had Tony sit out the Hydra fight at the beginning and only suit up again after he created Ultron.I actually detect that this was an undercurrent to Civil War. At the end of Age of Ultron, it seemed like he “quit” again (he certainly stopped being an active Avenger.)In Civil War, he doesn’t have his suit with him when Bucky is activated by Zemo, perhaps indicating he didn’t really suit up regularly anymore. After Ross goes apeshit that Cap escaped with Bucky, it seems like Tony was offering up something special when he says he was going to suit up to personally bring in Cap’s team, again like that was not something he did often anymore.
The next time we see him, he’s in the Avengers without any explanation or even a line of dialogue about how that happened.There LITERALLY are lines of dialogue. Coulson shows up at Tony’s Penthouse and Tony says, “I thought I didn’t qualify.”
It’s weird how the stand alone Iron Man sequels don’t seem to fit into the larger MCU.
Like how at the end of IM3 Tony has perfected Extremis and fixed Pepper and even repaired his own heart, but when Rhodey flat spins into the ground and breaks his back he isn’t immediately healed with Extremis. I don’t know why they didn’t include a single line of dialog at the end of Civil War or at the beginning of Infinity War to suggest Extremis was part of his treatment plan.
This is entirely untrue. The entire point of “The Avengers” was those characters coming together. They weren’t “The Avengers” until the very end. So it was not that “he’s in the Avengers without any explanation” AND there WERE tons of lines of dialogue all about that happening. Tony even says something like “I’m not part of this, said I wasn’t a team player?” Then Coulson says something like “plans change.” Then the rest of the movie is about, you know, coming together.Iron Man 3 literally ends with him saying “I am Iron Man” and talking to Banner. His affirmations weren’t “I’m done.” They were “I’m reborn.”
Huhhuh?Im3 is about his ptsd from A1, which feels his poor decisions in A2, which makes his decision to side with the government in Cap3 all the more in character.Infinity War is literally the manifestation of a nightmare he’s been having since the nuke went off, even losing Peter is heavily telegraphed as something he fears in Homecoming.Aso, shield gets destroyed between a1 and a2, making him the avengers sugar daddy.
What?! There is an explanation in The Avengers. Coulson shows up at Stark Tower with the briefing materials and Tony says something to the effect of “I thought you didn’t want me in your group. Apparently I’m volatile, self-obsessed and don’t play well with others.”
There was explanation in Avengers. The other thing was more sketchy, but you assume he had to come back in light of the HYDRA mess.
I’m sorry, but your memory and by extension your ‘takes” are off here. In both instances. Go do some re-watching and get back to us with your apology. Thanks!
At the very least it was an incredibly wasteful gesture.
In the first Avengers he addresses that when Coulson shows up at Stark Tower, saying that he wasn’t approved for the Avengers program and that consulting hours are (something like) “every other Thursday between 1-5″ or some other Starkism. It’s the emergency alien invasion — they NEED him, that brings him on. He addresses IM3 in Civil War when he’s telling Rodgers that Pepper left him. Line is something like “I destroyed the suits but I didn’t stop, because truth is I didn’t want to. Then Ultron happened – my fault – and..”basically that she dumped him because he wouldn’t or couldn’t stop being Iron Man.
At the end of Iron Man 3 he quits being Iron Man
No?
My favorite thing about the boxing-ring scene is Pepper screeching “OH MY GOD” after Nat hurls Happy to the floor. It’s such a great line reading.
Yeah, that and when she asks Coulson about the bomb he attaches to the door of Stane’s lab “Oh, wow! What’s that? It’s, like, a little device? It’s, like, a thing that’s going to pick the lock?”Kang hates Gwyneth Paltrow but she is utterly charming as Pepper Potts.
People would hate Gwyneth a lot less if she was as much Pepper Potts as RDJ is Tony IRL. She is wonderfully charming in the role.
She is, but I’m still waiting for a future movie to acknowledge the powers she was given at the end of IM3.
I thought that the epilogue of the movie explained that she was “cured” of Extremis.
Hmm, not as I recall. She was “cured” of it after she had it for 10 minutes?edit: Oh, nevermind; I think you’re right and it was part of the montage of Tony having the shrapnel removed from his chest.
In the voiceover at the end of IM3 Tony says that of course he “cured” her of her powers. It was a complete throwaway and really irritating.
What I like about the first Iron Man is it manages to make Pepper look believably freaked out by all the superhero stuff – which is entirely realistic – without taking away from the fact that she’s super competent as Tony’s executive assistant and the person running most of the day to day stuff at Stark Industries.
The final confrontation in IM3 was not my favorite, but I liked how Pepper went apeshit to save the day and was then like “Oh my god – that was really violent!” Another great line reading for an absurd moment.
I’m not the biggest fan of GOOP IRL, but it’s hard to deny she has made a really solid Pepper Potts. As someone else noted, she doesn’t let RDJ run all over her. They team together well as far as acting partners.
Paltrow is uniformly great in the MCU. Downey would have walked all over a lesser actress.
My only misgiving is that a huge part of her arc peaked fairly early – by IM2 she was in charge of the company and there wasn’t a lot of room left to grow in that regard. I think her character would have seemed more vital if she got a bit more power every movie rather than just turn into the CEO after the origin movie plus a few minutes of the first sequel.
Pepper Potts is probably my favorite part about the whole MCU.
Gweneth Paltrow/Pepper screaming in the Iron Man movies is always a delight. See also the Monaco action sequence. It somehow never comes off as damsel in distressy but instead just how any reasonable person would react, and anytime you have someone acting reasonably in unreasonable situations it is comedic gold. And more importantly through all her screaming, she powers through like the low-key (sometimes high-key) bad ass she is.
Yeah I couldn’t disagree with the author of this article more.IM2’s introduction of black widow is fantastic, and as far as her being a femme fatale, that’s exactly what she’s supposed to be, and it’s done so well.
I’ve said it before: Gwyneth Paltrow may be an awful, or at least insufferable, human being in person, but in the MCU she shines. In fact though I haven’t seen all her movies, in the ones I’ve seen she’s a fine actress. I can keep that opinion because I just don’t look at her GOOP website (or whatever it is – it’s a website, right?).
It’s a website, a lifestyle brand, I think there’s a magazine? But, yes, keep away from it at all costs and maintain your affection for Gwyneth as an actress. It’s the only way I can keep what’s left of my sanity.
I don’t find the use of Coulson in this movie “smart” and “economical.” I find it an obvious waste of screen time to heavy-handedly advertise the idea of “world-building” without actually contributing anything of substance. He shows up for a scene, declares that he’s there to serve a function (keep Tony under guard), isn’t around to do that, shows up in another scene to say he’s leaving. HI’d say h’s tacked onto the narrative so badly as to be an obnoxious distraction, but the whole thing is such an obnoxious jumbled mess of a narrative that in the end, nothing about it is engaging or purposeful.
I had no idea Sam Rockwell and Leslie Bibb were a couple until his Oscars acceptance speech, so their scene together became much more of a treat on repeat viewings. Also, Randy’s Donuts in Inglewood has no actual indoor seating, so I wonder how that whole scene came about. Did Favreau get so attached to the image of Tony in the doughnut they just said, “Fuck it, we’ll build a set?”
From what I can find, the “Randy’s” interior was shot on location somewhere else. It doesn’t bother me that Randy’s has indoor seating (after all, the MCU is clearly not our universe, it’s an alternate universe where superpowers exist and Randy’s has indoor seating), what bothers me is that the first shot (Tony in the Donut) is clearly just before sunset (the camera is facing northwest, the sun is behind Tony, so it’s near sunset) but the next scene (which one can only assume takes place immediately following) takes place during much brighter midday sunlight.Of course, alternate universe, maybe Randy’s giant concrete donut is oriented in another direction and we’re seeing the sunrise. But then that raises questions about the street layout in Los Angeles…
‘Avengers: Endgame’ will finally reveal how the different layout of Randy’s Donuts has significantly shaped every major moment of the series so far.
I bet Randy’s not even the owner’s real name.
Fuckin’ layers of the onion man.
It should really be remembered more than it is that literally the only reason this movie exists is that there were delays on Thor and they didn’t want to make the fans wait that long for the next entry. So it’s exactly what you’d expect from a movie rushed into being by accountants.
But accountants make the best movies!
Like The Incredible Hulk, I’d give this a 2.5 out of 5. It’s not unwatchable by any means. Also, like TIH, I feel like a few small changes would have vastly improved the movie, the primary one being the fight between Tony and Rhodey at the birthday party. It’s probably my least favorite MCU scene, and could have been handled much differently.
I’ve always liked how there was a giant hole in the periodic table that none of the chemists had ever noticed before. I especially liked how a mechanical engineer and weapons-maker was just the guy to discover it.
For real. If only we knew how Howard Stark learned about unique metals not otherwise known by science. It’s a huge mystery.
I dunno, I like the idea that even Howard dismissed Wakanda, assuming the Vibranium found is a fluke.
My big ask is that Howard got a hold of this incredible material, a once-in-a-lifetime find, and is just, “I’ll make a shield from it and leave it casually on this table.”
You know how it goes, guy wanted to make a shield.
Truly unassailable logic.
True. I mean, he had a bunch of shields for Cap to peruse. I just think it’s funny that that was the one a bit to the side, like, “Oh, that old thing– rarest, most incredible metal on earth. I almost forgot I brought it.”
I wouldwould love a throwback series that’s like adventures of Howard Stark in the 50s and 60s including their trip to wakanda where he meets t’chaka.
It’s stuff like that that bothers me—it really wouldn’t be that difficult to have it be a heretofore undiscovered molecule rather than an element.
Science fiction movies just have a thing about elements. The number of times I’ve seen a movie where a character says “Whatever this is, it’s not on the periodic table” (a statement that could also be applied to, for example, wood) is ridiculous. There are other ways to say something’s strange than invoking the periodic table.
If it’s an element, it’s either in the periodic table, or it’s so radioactive it will a) give everyone in the room instant stage 4 cancer or b) immediately decay into something else.
You’re right that the new superheavy elements that have been discovered in the past half century are so are usually highly radioactive and very short lived. That said, there are some hypothetical notions that there may be a range of as yet undiscovered superheavy elements that are far more stable, so it’s certainly a lot more grounded in what current science thinks could be possible than many sci-fi tropes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability
Ooh, new learning! Thanks!Considering how dense these hypothetical metals would be, I’m curious what their practical applications could be beyond armor penetration. Fantasy elements like vibranium and adamantium always come across as “lighter than titanium.”
Somehow, this element has 26.3 protons!
So, 26 protons & an up quark?
Did someone say “up Quark”?
As opposed to “down Quark”.
Now do strange and charm(ing.) Do NOT do top and bottom.
Strange Quark
Charm(ing) Quark
Bottom Quark 😉
Right up there with sci-fi movies acting like light speed is fast or something.
That’s because you don’t want to speak so far over the lowest common denominator’s head that they get confused which makes them bored and angry
They learned nothing from Predator 2.
…so what’s wrong with Predator 2?
And Tony just says fuck-it and builds a super-collider in his living room.
“Iron Man” famously had a lot of improv behind-the-scenes, but that worked in its favor thanks to a talented cast and it made the characters seem more three-dimensional.
I feel like using that same attitude with “Iron Man 2″ clashed against Marvel’s hopes of expanding the universe. There are just so many awkward pauses or go-nowhere scenes (from a comedic or plot standpoint) that you just sit there and think “Oh my God, nobody actually finished this script.” Also, I get Robert Downey not wanting to portray Tony Stark’s alcoholism due to his own past with addiction. For what it’s worth, I think the PTSD angle worked really well. But playing his alcoholism for laughs in “Iron Man 2″ just felt in bad taste. It teases what we could have had while also making light of a serious issue (that the lead actor himself dealt with no less).
Did he not wanna play the alcoholism? Because I’ve been consistantly disappointed that’s not more fore-fronted. This should have been the movie to address it. I wanted a mirror of the final scene of the first movie only this time he says “I am Tony Stark. And I am an alcoholic!” Pull back to reveal he’s at his first AA meeting.
“I give myself over to a higher power. Iron Man”queue heavy rock outro
It was a waste, and not because “drama”.We could use a big time super hero who confronts his addiction and uses the same strength it takes to overcome it to perserve later in a conflict.Positive role models, even besotted adults could use a champion on screen.
From the time it was announced, I fully expected a scene where Tony was “drunk driving” in the suit. Side-swiping parked cars n shit.
That bottom part is awesome and would work phenomenally for a movie. But in reality AA is sort of trash and the fact they have somehow made their non science based 12 step rehab model the de facto rehab in the eyes of a lot of people sucks.
Before IM2 came out, there were whispers that it was going to adapt “Demon in a Bottle,” at least in part, which had some fans pretty excited since, y’know, Downey would probably bring a lot of reality to that part. Then upon seeing the finished, ultimately lame film that walks right up to adapting Demon in a Bottle, then flees from it entirely, we all thought “Yeah, I guess RDJ wouldn’t…really…want to do it, would he.”
I always thought it was Marvel’s new Disney overlords that nixed the Demon in a Bottle story line because they deemed it too dark.
I figured IM2 would’ve been shielded from that, though, since it was still a Paramount Picture.
I might have believed that before Rogue One.
I dislike that they “dealt” with it off screen.He hasn’t had a drink in many a movie.I understand rdj reservations but super hero comics have been a fantastic vehicle for stories about addiction, not just Demon in the Bottle.I would like to see a MCU movie that didn’t pull punches on some of the moral lessons we used to expect. They touch on them but never confront them head-on.
I even remember bristling when he offered Loki a drink in the first “Avengers” movie. “No drink? I’m having one.” I’m like “Did you HAVE to put that in there?”
I thought they were going to do Demon In A Bottle until Hancock came out.
But playing his alcoholism for laughs in “Iron Man 2″ just felt in bad taste.
I never got the impression they were playing his alcoholism for laughs in IM2. I got the impression they were going more for a “person with a terminal disease engaging in self-destructive behavior.”
IM2 didn’t have a finished script when they started shooting. That’s why the improv feels so heavy handed here – there was nothing else to shoot that day.
I think whole extended bit with the strawberries was where the movie lost me. That was so drawn out and cringey I just couldn’t get back into the film after that.
I’m pretty sure the solo Hulk franchise CAN’T go anywhere. Legally. It’s a rights issue.
Something with universal. Universal has to co-produce any solo hulk movie or something. But don’t feel like it. I assume they were involved in the Norton hulk. So hulk can appear IN marvel movies, but not have his own. I’m ok with that. He works better with somebody to play off of. Even a solo hulk flick,at this point, would have another avenger or somebody in it.
I wish they had the rights to She-Hulk so they could sidestep it that way.
So just release a Rick Jones movie that prominently features his good friend, the Hulk.
I thought this said Rick James, so I starred it.
In the comics, doesn’t he become a character named Fallout or something like that? Also, a Red Hulk movie would be nice. A bunch of Hulk-related movies would be awesome.
Basically. Last I checked, Universal has first right of refusal for distribution of any Hulk film. So Disney can make a Hulk film, but they have to offer it to Universal for distribution. And since they don’t want to give away a slice of the pie, that means they aren’t going to be making any Hulk films while that rights deal lasts (no idea how long that’ll be).
Unlike Fox’s (X-Men, Fantastic Four) & Sony’s (Spider-Man) deals, both of which would’ve expired if they went too long without making a film, Universal somehow managed to get right-of-first-refusal on Hulk (& I think also Namor) in perpetuity; the only thing that can end their claim is refusing to distribute a film.
Aren’t the exact details of all these licensing deals private, so a lot of that is someone’s best guess?
I don’t know why these terms would need to be private; at the very least, there’s no NDA on it.
Looking back, I think if they were looking to give Black Widow a strong introduction they should have done a variation of her comics intro story, where she’s working for the villain, is sent to conduct espionage on Tony, and eventually switches sides.
You know, if we met her for the first time, tied to a chair in the Avengers, I’d have been fine with that. Not sure she was really even needed in this movie. Should have focused more on Howard Stark or Whiplash or Sam Rockwell anyway.
Wait. So now “that Marvel Moment” is focusing on low points? Because yeah this is some of the worst stuff in one of the worst movies. Tony talking to Thunderbolt Ross at the end of Incredible Hulk was awesome. So I’m not sure what we’re doing now.
The A.V. Club is revisiting all 21 movies in this mega-franchise through a single, significant scene in each: not the best or most memorable scene, necessarily, but the one that says something about the MCU as an ongoing blockbuster phenomenon. This is The Marvel Moment.
We tend not to discuss this post-2012-Avengers, but the first slate of MCU movies is kind of weak. Iron Man and Cap are both great, and then you’ve got three of the worst MCU entries in Hulk, Thor and Iron Man 2. Makes sense that the early articles in this series would be so critical. The MCU doesn’t really hit its groove until after all the Avengers meet up.
I agree Hulk and Iron Man 2 are weak. Thor I think is underrated. They nailed the look of Asguard. They didn’t half ass it. They went all the way to 11. Full on bonkers. Chris Hemworth was like casting Christopher Reeves as Superman. Just spot on. And he’s been a linchpin of the MCU ever since. Balancing humor and heroics like it’s nothin. Loved the star-crossed lovers angle too. I think it’s the most romantic of the MCU films. There’s a couple great moments you can pull from even the worst Marvel movie. Heck, they just did it yesterday with Incredible Hulk.
I also think it gets less love than it deserves. It’s a big dumb fantasy and I really appreciate it for that. I also really like how they didn’t have Thor dumbly marvelling at every piece of earth ephemera, but found the moments that made sense to him but were funny to us. (Walking into a pet store asking for a horse, for example.)
The problem with Thor and Thor 2 is Natalie Portman / Jane Foster. Portman had no chemistry with Hemsworth and seemed to not want to be there at all. The forced love story was weak, which is why they’ve long since dropped it.
Thor I think is underrated. They nailed the look of Asguard. They didn’t
half ass it. They went all the way to 11. Full on bonkers. Chris Hemworth was like casting Christopher Reeves as Superman. Just spot on. And he’s been a linchpin of the MCU ever since.
I agree the look of Asguard and Chris Hemsworth as Thor are both great. But I always felt his character journey from cocky to humble and worthy felt way too forced and quick. Thor was always second from the bottom of my personal MCU rankings with Thor: the Dark World at the dead bottom. But I have to say that I loved Thor: Ragnarok so much that it actually makes me like Thor 1 a little more in retrospect. 🙂
I’d actually add on that I thought Cap 1 was pretty meh.
One could argue both men (and the camera) were underestimating her by treating her like a sex object just before she kicks Hogan’s ass. Then later she kicks a lot of other dudes asses while dub, oafish Hogan does next to nothing and then take credit for all her work.I mean, I wouldn’t argue that personally, but one could.
I’d argue instead that Happy’s comment at the end of the Widow-kiss-ass scene was comic relief. At least in the theater where I saw it.
Your argument is the correct one.
That’d be a pretty dumb argument if they did
This movie is a bit of a mess but it’s a fun mess.
Look at it as several different comic book issues, making up one volume.
The actors are great, there’s great dialogue, good action… there’s just not much of a convincing threat. Coming off of Iron Monger, that was a big letdown. But it’s still a fun movie.
And the ‘world-building’ is just so incredibly tame by modern-MCU standards. SHIELD was part of Iron Man 1, so they weren’t shoe-horned in. Adding Natasha worked, even if she was just there to fill out a jumpsuit.
The movie works a lot more than people give it credit for. But it is disjointed and after the Monaco sequence, it never really regains it’s momentum.
ANTI-FUN FACT: The movie has MCU’s first proper Hero Vs. Hero fight! That’s the Marvel moment in this movie. And the first song to play is “Another One Bites The Dust,” which has a different meaning in the MCU today.
Yes! THAT’S the Marvel moment here. (For a second I thought it might be Tony in the doughnut.) It’s two friends fighting in Iron Man suits, one drunk, to a mix by DJ AM.
And the big robot fight in the garden is pretty damn cool. I had heard Gendy Tartakovsky storyboarded some scenes before I saw it the first time, and I thought his style was all over that scene in particular. Little details like the flower petals and the pause Tony takes after he dodges the missile…I also find that I am an Iron Man 2 apologist.
And the ‘world-building’ is just so incredibly tame by modern-MCU
standards. SHIELD was part of Iron Man 1, so they weren’t shoe-horned
in. Adding Natasha worked, even if she was just there to fill out a
jumpsuit.
I wouldn’t go that far. I liked how Marvel used the stand-alone films to slowly fill out the roster of other characters. Introducing Black Widow in Iron Man 2. Introducing Hawkeye in Thor. Getting those minor introductions out of the way, so you don’t have to waste time when you get to Avengers.
Sam Rockwell chewing scenery will always be a yes for me, so I don’t mind IM2 that much.
For all it’s faults Iron Man 2 made me appreciate the beauty of Scarlett Johannsson. And I’ve been in love with her ever since.I would also say that the upcoming Black Widow solo movie is probably 3-4 years overdue. It really should’ve happened after Age of Ultron.
It’s funny cuz I think a lot of people were all “Scarlett is a terrible Black Widow!” after this movie, but in Avengers and especially Winter Soldier, she was one of the best characters. (I haven’t seen any MCU w/ Widow since Winter Soldier).
Agreed she was great in Winter Soldier, validating even more that she deserved her solo film. Without spoiling things, Age of Ultron hints more at her backstory whilst she has more minimal roles in Civil War and Infinity War. I’m sure she will have more involvement in Endgame for sure.
Back off, man. She’s mine.
If the reason for all of these articles is to make me sick to death of the topic of Game of Thrones and Marvel you’ve succeeded.
It’s not as if either series are about to drop major new episodes or film and people are eagerly checking the internet for news and info of the kind they would find on an entertainment news and commentary website. I am baffled.
He’s always like this, just ignore him.
I’d rather them talk about pop culture then do “here’s what Colbert said!” article.
Ass-first may sound ridiculous, but in that godawful Punisher/Black Widow movie she attacks one guy vagina-first.
Which Punisher movie had Black Widow? Or is something going over my head?
It’s a DTV animated movie, might have some fans among people who want anime versions of Marvel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avengers_Confidential:_Black_Widow_%26_Punisher
Hm. Romanoff and Castle would make a good team, though. Too bad we’ll probably never see a version with Johansson and Bernthal.
So? Bruce Springsteen attacked a super bowl camera penis-first, and you don’t see anyone complaining about that.
I love Scarlett in this movie for a lot of different reasons. My second favorite Black Widow hairstyle (first is obviously the straightened Winter Soldier look), that dope-ass suit, the hallway fight where she makes Favreau look like a fat old man, all of it. Say what you want about the rest of the movie, but she killed it.
“Ohhhhh, dream weaver ….”
You better WORK(Cover girl!) Work it girl (Give it a twirl!)Do your thingOn the runway!
I’m going to have this gif tattooed in my brain.
Surface of the sun, man.
LOL at Favreau checking out her ass. That’s going to offend someone.
I don’t give a fuck.
Favreau doesn’t even try to hide where he’s leering. Not sure he’s able. Nor would I.
Thiiiiis.I don’t get the whining about her being a fem-fatale… that’s EXACTLY what BW is supposed to be and she killed it.
She’s the most dangerous woman in the world. I don’t know how else she could’ve played it.
I think some of the bloggers here want every woman to be carol danvers (Fighter-pilot arrogant, telling off everyone) without realizing there’s many different types of awesome.
My comment had nothing to do with ‘the bloggers here’.
Oh, I was kind of sidelaning into Danette’s view that BW wasn’t good because she was “femme-fatale”
watching jon favreau’s eyeline is…. ya know, I don’t blame him, but it’s pretty sweaty
MCU movies worse than Iron Man 2:Thor 2Avengers 2Guardians 2Captain Marvel
Swap Guardians 2 with Iron Man 3 and you’ve got yourself a list.
IM3 was terrific. Easily better than Avengers, Avengers 2, GotG 1 and 2, all the Thor movies (yes, even 3), Captain Marvel, etc.
I respectfully disagree, there’s no way IM3 is better than GOTG 1 or 2, or Ragnarok. Captain Marvel is still up in the air for me, it was fine, but not amazing.
I respectfully disagree with your disagreement!
I’m curious what your vote would be for most overrated MCU film would be. Mine without a doubt is Black Panther.
“Most overrated”? Definitely Avengers. It’s deeply mediocre. It has its good spots, to be sure. But the first 20 minutes are absolutely awful and its last twenty are pretty bad, too. Just mindless action against an army of faceless gray drones with almost no stakes. It is amazing that Whedon did the exact same thing in Ultron, where it was even worse. Then again, I like both GotG movies even less and they are pretty much beloved, so perhaps those are more “overrated” in my book. Also “Civil War” is moderately of overrated. “Winter Soldier” is slightly overrated. TFA is underrated, IM3 is somewhat underrated. Captain Marvel is definitely overrated! Basically, everyone out there is a little bit wrong somewhere except me.
What are you smoking?
Woah, calm down with the Guardians 2 hate. Kurt Russell was terrific.
So what? Most professional actors are good, let alone movie stars like Russell with 40 year careers. Doesn’t make the movie any good, tho.
Guardians 2 *whistling intensifies*
Ant Man and Wasp needs to be on the list too.
Why is Dr. Strange absent from this list?
No way is Guardians 2 worse.
Guardians 1 kinda sucks. Guardians 2 unambiguously sucks.
Please explain what about Guardians 1 sucked more than Trevor Slattery, annoying child acting and third straight generic white dude weapons manufacturer villain?
The Trevor Slattery twist was hilarious, surprising, clever and brilliant and better than anything across both GotG movies. As a villain, sure, Killian wasn’t spectacular, but holy smokes, “Ronan” was the friggin’ WORST, most boring, pointless, generic, bland villain in the entire MCU (okay, fine, tied with Thor 2.) Yikes.
What the fuck was hilarious or brilliant about it? It was an interesting idea, but executed terribly. It basically replaced an actual dramatic movie with a children’s cartoon, in fact ripping off the plot from an actual children’s movie. At least you knew what you were getting with both GOTGs, it didn’t pretend to be something else before faking you out. And Ego was way better than Killian for the record.
I recently rewatched Iron Man 2 for the first time since I saw it in theaters. I was most surprised by the awful Elon Musk cameo, the fact that it was written by Justin “The Leftovers” Theroux, and that Mickey Rourke really does a great job at bringing to life an underwritten villain. Rourke’s cockatoo might be the secret MVP of the entire film.
For the people who dislike “Iron Man 2″ but love “Black Panther” (and there are a lot of people out there for whom this is true including Oscar voters), my question is why? Because both films basically have almost identical stories!-Both are sons who inherit their father’s legacy of privilege and try to create their own direction with it. And both are facing questions about how much of that legacy should be shared with the rest of the world.-In the past, the heroes’ fathers had someone close to them attempt to use their work/resources in a way they disagreed with, disowned them, causing a break which had unintended consequences.-The sons of those who’ve been disgraced become the main villains of the story and want vengeance for what was done to them and their family, while also feeling they’re owed a piece of the hero’s life of privilege.-The villains are dark mirror versions of the hero’s power, and are attempting to spread the technology in ways which would be hugely destructive to the world.Now, other than the fact Michael B. Jordan gives a much better performance than Mickey Rourke, and there’s the specialness of having a black cast of characters and black director in an imagined African society, how are the movies all that different?
Opinion is justifiably divided on which is the worst MCU film, but I think this may be the dullest. (I reckon even the previous ‘Incredible Hulk’ has some better set pieces.) At this point in the series, the idea of these films keeping people interested as far as ‘The Avengers’ must have looked a little shaky.
I don’t know – this made more than the first film (at least worldwide – and it was only $6m short domestically where it was the 3rd biggest film of the year) and Thor/Cap were already well into production. They probably knew those two were risks but that people were tied in to Iron Man enough at this point to see themselves through to Avengers. I doubt they figured it would end up taking more than both Iron Mans (and a Hulk) combined but probably confident enough to end Phase 1 as a success.
All those shots of Scarlett Johansson in this movie make it easy to see this was made before Disney bought Marvel. Because, after that, the MCU went into hard PG-13 territory.
Even the shots of a half naked Leslie Bibb in IM1 feels like in stark (heh) contrast to the post-Paramount MCU flicks
In Age of Ultron Widow was aggressively pursuing a reluctant Bruce Banner. I’m not sure that makes her the love interest so much as it makes Bruce one, but I guess AoU hate tends to blur the lines between fact and fiction.
It’s a smart, very economical bit of storytelling from Favreau and writer Justin Theroux—through a few one-sided phone calls, Coulson becomes a part of two franchises, and well on his way to heading up his own series.I think credit here should really go to the Thor screenwriters Stentz and Miller, who liked Coulson in Iron Man so much that they stuck him in Thor without even wondering if there’d need to be a behind-the-scenes deal made.
Wait, Black Widow has had 10 appearances? I count only six released films plus the stinger in CAPTAIN MARVEL, with ENDGAME and the star vehicle upcoming. What’s the tenth?
Iron Man 2, Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers Infinity War, and Captain Marvel post credits. Yeah… no idea where they’re getting 10 from. Misremembering and thinking she was in Cap 1 since she was in 2 and 3 perhaps?
I’m guessing you’re missing Homecoming, which was uncredited and only archived footage.
Hmph.
This movie still has some of my favorite small Tony bits, though. When he leaves Pepper’s office and throws the strawberries out and manages to not get a single one into the trash can? Cracks me up.
From how I understand it, basically Iron Man had a fun cameo from Nick Fury that wasn’t really meant to go anywhere, and then they added Tony Stark to the end of Hulk as another sort of “test”. In reality, the “first” real phase of the MCU is Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America, right?Iron Man 2 gets a bad rap, but it’s not wholly terrible. It’s still pretty entertaining, and it lays the groundwork for most of Tony’s arc: he’s cocky, and he has to start dealing with the fact that he’s not just created this suit, but he’s really put it out there for people to see. Captain Marvel, Captain America, and Ant-Man address this in interesting ways: these ideas were hidden and sort of “known” to the right insiders. (Tales to Astonish! stories of people shooting lasers out of their hands! This movie star that sorta went missing after a while.) I think viewed individually (Tony Stark vs. a Tony Stark Wannabe and Mickey Rourke, but with whips) it’s not a great, but I like how it opens everything up a little bit more. i really view Iron Man 2 and Ant-Man as the two great course corrections in the MCU. My only real issue with how it starts to sand the edge off of the harder storylines that Marvel (the comics) tried to tackle.
I enjoy the movie mostly for Sam Rockwell’s performance. The man is captivating to watch with his piece de resistance being the weapons breakdown scene, ending with the “ex-wife”. I took all the sexualization of ScarJo to be part of her schtick. She’s like a magician where she makes men look at one thing while she’s stuff where they aren’t looking.I personally think IM2 and Thor2 get a lot of hate, despite being decent films. They aren’t great films, but they are still entertaining…at least for me.
“Black Widow fares much better in later films the Peggy Carter series, where she’s both written better and played by a far superior actress”ftfy
I like Iron Man 2 more than most it was goofy fun a few head scratching decisions but goofy fun nonetheless
Very few of the MCU movies hold up well at all in retrospect.
Did Favreau slim down? Does ScarJo agree with me that Colin Jost’s head is abnormally large? What about that thing on his shoulders?
OH NOES, THE MEN FIND ONE OF THE HOTTEST WOMEN ON EARTH ATTRACTIVE!Stop with the beta bullshit.
I actually enjoy this film and don’t see all the hate for it. Much more accessible and fun then IM3 and Age of Ultron. And was great to see Garry Shandling (not surprising how he turned out later on).
I really think IM2 has more going for it than it’s given credit for. It establishes that Tony’s more of a mess than he wants to let on, which is an ongoing thing in the MCU. Iron Man and War Machine wiping the floor with the Hammer drones was one of the most awesome battle scenes we’d get in the MCU for a long time (it’s sheer firepower without whanging shields or hammer-pitching or roaring smashing noise). Black Widow’s takedown of Hammer’s goons set the stage for a whole bunch of great fight-throughs on Agents of SHIELD (May in particular had to be on that level of unarmed combat and then clearly the showrunners wanted Daisy to get there too). And to be honest, it makes more sense for this film to focus on her as that femme fatale. She’s SUPPOSED to be a spy/infiltrator, not a commando. Her being a foot soldier with two subcompact pistols makes zero sense in the big set piece battles. Winter Soldier is the only other film I can think of where Natasha’s in her element.
Him saying “I want one” is completely in character for Tony Stark, the main character of the film, so I disagree that it disrespected her character.You know what did respect her character? Anytime someone other than the target (Tony) belittled her, she kicked their ass.
As we continue to put every moment of cinematic history through the prism of the current #MeToo movement.
I have a lot of problems with this movie – the pacing, the fights are pretty meh, and I don’t really enjoy watching any of the characters. But what really drove me over the edge was the horrendous horrendous science. new elements as a McGuffin a really stupid idea when an alloy is what you really want. Furthermore, you can’t just make a new element in your basement, this requires a 1/2 mile diameter perfectly calibrated loop (and still this is a40year struggle)…. you can’t just half-ass it with robot hands.I realize that nobody else but me cares, but I found this very annoying. Just consult a scientist in the future for simple and cool plot McGuffins. K? Thx.
I for one have about as much interest in the coming Black Widow movie as I do a metaphorical Hawkeye movie. Which is none at all. Both characters are best used as supporting characters to other more flashy heroes. Meh.
Black Widow fares much better in later films, including two Captain America movies and The Avengers, before essentially being reduced to a love interest in Avengers: Age Of UltronBlack Widow fares much better in The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier before being reduced to a love interest in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Her own narrative agency is restored in Captain America: Civil War – her second appearance in a Captain America movie.
I like IM2. I agree that parts are a bit wonky (Tony drunk, spinning records in his suit) but Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer? C’mon – perfect. Every scene he’s in (trying to “be” Tony at the Senate hearings, cuddling up to an obviously uncomfortable Tony at the Formula One Race) is so damn shmarmy, funny and perfect, but describing the weapons for “War Machine” takes the cake, especially: “These are the Cubans, baby. This is the Cohibas, the Montecristos. This is a kinetic-kill, side-winder vehicle with a secondary cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine RDX burst. It’s capable of busting a bunker under the bunker you just busted. If it were any smarter, it’d write a book, a book that would make Ulysses look like it was written in crayon. It would read it to you. This is my Eiffel Tower. This is my Rachmaninoff’s Third. My Pieta. It’s completely elegant, it’s bafflingly beautiful, and it’s capable of reducing the population of any standing structure to zero. I call it ‘The Ex-Wife.’”
Refuse this. Review on Iron Man 2 with no shout out to Justin Hammer is just another Iron Man 2 review from some entitles baby who doesn’t like movies I guess.
I’ve started re-watching the movies and made it to Iron Man 2 and TIH last night. I have to say although the movie is still at the bottom of the list as far as the other 22 movies, all the story building from things that happened post IM2 really do make it better. Regarding Widow it is really the only time other than the beginning of Avengers were we actually see her as a spy, which is what she was really trained to do. Everything after that she’s an Avenger.
As someone in the middle of a rewatch myself, I think that Iron Man 2 is really underrated. I can’t argue that the sexy shots of her aren’t gratuitous. The camera does treat her a bit differently after her reveal as a spy, but not differently enough. There should have been a more clear shift to reflect the shift in how Stark sees her.That said, I’m always confused by the complaints about Vanko as a villain, which always seem to come down to “it’s another guy in a suit”. Yes, that is true, though I don’t necessarily think that it’s a huge knock to say that a story about a guy who is an obsessive tinkerer primarily has villains that are also obsessive tinkerers. But Vanko is world’s better than Stane, who is entertaining, but ultimately shallow. Vanko is part of a larger story in IM2 about fathers and sons, and the legacies that we leave. The movie is making a point through the emotional arc of its main character and his relationships, which is kind of what I want all super hero movies to do.
Women can only write (whine) trash drenched in feminist BS?
Are there no decent women left?
What did you expect a woman with mere (but already unreasonable) athletic skills do in Ultron or Infinty war?
The First Iron man was excellent, the rest of them are just horrible, horrible money grabs. And why did they cast Pepper with that horrible woman, why oh why do we have to hear her stoned sounding words.
I think I’m the only person who prefers Iron Man 2 to either of the other two.
“Focuses on her femme-fatale side”Wait, that’s your problem with it?I thought Iron Man two’s lone highlights were how well it introduced her, and the world building aspect. The femme-fatale was fantastic, she was fantastic.
I think that, despite IM2 generally being thought of as one of the ‘worst’ Marvel films, there’s still a lot going on in there. I re-watched it recently, and the stuff with Tony watching his dad on the old film still gets to me. It helps really set up Tony’s emotional reaction to learning that the Winter Soldier murdered his parents in Civil War. Even the bad Marvel films have one or two gems of real feeling in there. I can re-watch this one easily. Having said all of that, yeah, Black Widow is not treated very well. She kicks ass, but Favreau really lingers way too long on her, uh, assets.
I still don’t understand how the villain didn’t just die when a Rolls-Royce rammed him into a metal barrier.
So you have a movie centered around a self-proclaimed ‘playboy’ and Black Widow takes on that persona as any great spy would, and all of a sudden the movie did her a disservice? And nit picking at her ‘down the blouse shots” is as trivial as nitpicking every MCU man’s required ab shot.
Can we talk about how the super-spy takes on the persona of a notary who moonlights as a model, but then whoops Tony’s bodyguard’s ass three minutes into her undercover op? Nothing suspicious about that!
Also, can we talk about how much better Iron Man 2 had been if Natasha had been revealed to be working for Justin Hammer, with a late reveal that she was actually a double-agent working for SHIELD the whole time?
I can’t really compare it to Dominic Cooper’s portrayal, since I’m woefully behind in the MCU and have only seen it in Captain America, but anyone who says John Slattery playing Howard Stark as Roger-Sterling-meets-Walt-Disney isn’t awesome is lying.
Iron Man 2 is the movie that showed that going full Sam Rockwell is too much Sam Rockwell.
The mishandling of The Black Widow is disappointing, and I can’t really defend Iron Man 2 on that point. But Sam Rockwell as a wanna-be Tony Stark was priceless. Cheadle replacing Howard was a net positive for War Machine. Some action sequences were solid-bordering-on-great. In all, I don’t hate Iron Man 2, but short of Thor: Dark World, I think this is the MCU movie I’ve seen the least.
While I understand why the intro of Black Widow was chosen, I think the suitcase suit also has a case to be made for the most important moment from this film. This was the first time Tony was able to suit up without a bunch of mechanical arms putting him together. From now on, Tony didn’t have to leave the house as Ironman, he could become Ironman at any time. Of course carrying around a suitcase is not ideal, so now he’s got nanobots, but this was a huge step in his technological advancement.
Watch the scene with Widow and Tony meeting again. Tony is NOT enamored with her, despite his words. That’s just his humor, which he uses to cope with stress in every single movie (hes in the middle of appointing a new ceo.) He is 100% suspicious of Widow from the very beginning. He pulls up her information and proceeds to get this Russian spy cornered in a boxing ring where she is forced to show off her MMA skills by reflex which exposed her. “Who speaks Latin?” Tony was being very intelligent here and I feel few people pick up on that. This is one of my favorite scenes in the entire MCU. After the boxing ring, tony knows. And Widow knows Tony knows which creates an interesting dynamic later in the movie.
When Tony says “I want one”, it’s about who Tony is, not Natasha. Tony Stark has already been established as a womanizer in the first film. When Pepper says Natasha is a “potentially very expensive sexual harassment lawsuit”, she doesn’t say that as a diss to Natasha but as a diss to Tony. It’s important to remember that the movie doesn’t suppose that we all read comics and that we know who Black Widow is (even if the marketing gave the punch away). From the viewer’s – and Tony’s – perspective, Natasha is a pretty girl that oh, surprise! turns out to be more than meets the eye. Fury had a spy keep an eye on by exploiting his womanizing ways. The movie only reflects that.
She provides keen and unflinching analysis of Tony’s “textbook narcissism,”he inconsistent and occasionally downright disappointing treatment of the character beginsI think if the author looked up he would see the clear point scooting right by.