Pewter Man -- Not quite Iron Man

Rating: 8/10 (7 May 2010)

First and foremost: go see this movie while it is in the theaters. It's a great "big screen" movie: lots of special effects, big sound and big scenery. Lots of reasons to see it in the theater. Mickey Rourke STEALS THE SHOW, in my opinion. I didn't detect a hint of fakery in his Russian accent (and I'm pretty sensitive to stuff like that), his acting was flawless and he was perfectly cast in this role.
Another reason to see this movie is that it's pretty hilarious. It's almost a comedy, it's so damn funny. There are inside jokes and outside jokes and side-side jokes. Just enough humor to make it funny, but not so much that it turns into a farce.
Now the bad news. I won't go as far as to say that I was disappointed in this movie, but two things occurred to me in the middle of it. First, as usual with superhero movies, this movie looks and feels like an advertisement to sell a video game of the movie. Scenes where Iron Man weaves his way through pylons under a bridge, or when he breaks out of a geodesic dome with Oracle's name inexplicably on the side, or when he mows down twenty drones with a new secret weapon on the suit, have you imagining a pimply-faced teenager (or not-so-teenager) sitting in his parents' basement manipulating his Wii controller.
Second, as with the first Iron Man, there is a TON of product placement in this movie. Audi, Oracle -- they even had a product placement on his water bottle after the boxing scene (although the sponsor is escaping me at the moment).
One of the biggest complaints I have with superhero movies is they feel compelled after the first movie (especially if it's wildly successful like Iron Man was) to show the main character as a flawed or dependent or as a tragic character. This drives me crazy. If you're a fan of the comic books, you will see that these characters have pasts (most of the time) and they have secrets, but there's no overriding FLAWS in their character -- that's why they're superheroes! Hollywood INSISTS on bringing the tortured angst of the character forward to try to get us to connect with his (or her) human element. I don't want them to be human. I want my superheroes to be superheroes, even if they are human. Spiderman did this in the second and third movies (the third one was a disaster) in my opinion), the Hulk has done it (twice), and I'm sure there are others.
Another problem I had with this movie was Gwyneth Paltrow. She is UNBELIEVABLY ANNOYING throughout this entire movie. She was so charming in the first movie and the writers simply spoiled her character by turning her into a SHREW. I wanted to punch her in the face. I also wanted to see more of Scarlett Johansson. She is BEYOND yummy. I would eat her liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
All-in-all this is a good movie. It's not a great movie, but the success of the original was going to be difficult to duplicate. It will do well in the theaters and it will likely break box office records in the first weekend. The DVD will sell at Christmas and the Wii video game will sell out. It could have been a better movie, but it isn't and we can look forward to Iron Man 3. The good news is that sequels usually suck, but they seem to learn their lessons, get the garbage all out of their systems and the third one is usually better for it. Maybe they feel they don't really have anything to prove at that point.
One final note: MAKE SURE YOU STAY THROUGH THE ENTIRE CREDITS!!! There's a vignette at the end that gives you a hint of what's to come. It's very short, but you don't want to miss it.