Pleasantly Surprised again

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2010)

When I saw the first Iron Man movie, I was surprised at just how competently filmed and well acted that movie was. When compared to all "Super Hero" movies before it, Iron Man was easily at the top. Then the Dark Knight came out and sent everyone else packing. Then Watchmen came out and everyone put their stuff away and went back to work.
In short, Iron Man is the story of a very intelligent, highly flawed man who can barely keep his life together while facing super-human threats. In other words, every other Marvel character out there. But The movie is so well acted, and the dialog so perfectly askew that you really feel drawn in. It's not over-dramatic (well, a few scenes) but overall it's a solid story. When I heard the sequel would feature A. Whiplash, B. Black Widow, C. War Machine, and D. An army of Iron Man knockoff robots, I was honestly skeptical as to how the movie could possibly not be stupid.
The movie was not stupid. A few parts where Tony is ruining his life because he thinks he's dying are, to be honest, a little irritating to watch. But by the end of the movie we really are on his side because he is such a likable character.
A lot of people complained about replacing Rhody. In the first movie he was played by Terrance Howard, and in the second by Don Cheadle. People were angry and wanted to know why. I will tell you why. Don Cheadle can act. Terrence Howard can't. Watch his scenes in the first movie, he's blowing his lines everywhere. He's wooden, and uninteresting. Now watch Don Cheadle in the second, he's intense, he's genuine, and he's grammatically correct. "An unfortunate training exercise occurred yesterday," is a line that logically makes no sense. The line is "An unfortunate INCIDENT occurred DURING a training exercise yesterday." If that's the take they kept, imagine what's on the cutting room floor, or more likely, ashes in Terrence Howard's agents office.
Now while the whole 'secret your father left you' angle is pretty cliché and ham-handed, we quickly forget this as Stark goes back to what he does best, which is wreck his house and build a thing. He's great at building things, and watching him build things makes every nerd giddy. It's like Mythbusters but with CGI effects.
Also, Jon Favreau is a very clever devil. Knowing that every fan-boy is looking for signs of the eventual Avengers movie, he coyly inserted a half-formed Captain America Shield into the 'building the thing' scene. Agent Colson picks it up, Tony Stark looks at it in wonder and says "Yes, that's exactly what I need!" and then uses it to prop up part of the thing he's built. Yes, friends, it's a meta-fan-boy joke.
Oh, and if you DON'T want to sit through the credits to see the secret scene at the end (and trust me, it's not worth it) I will SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT! Tell you what it is. It's a crater in the middle of the desert with Thor's Hammer sticking out of it. SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!! So, ultimately, is this movie worth seeing? Yes. It's probably one of the better movies to come out this summer, but then I don't get out much, so I could be wrong, but it cleaned Robin Hood's clock. Say, didn't we HAVE a gritty Robin Hood movie come out already? Prince of something something? Not of Persia? Before I ramble on any more: Surprisingly solid story, well acted, gorgeous special effects, decent action scenes, and Scarlet Johanssen is so hot even my Girlfriend's jaw dropped. It surprised the HELL out of me, I thought she was more into Gweneth.