Stuff That I Saw - Iron Man 2

Note: This review will contain some slight spoilers, but nothing too bad.  You'll probably be able to see the plot coming from a mile away anyways.

Back in 2008, the first Iron Man film kicked off a summer filled with great comic book movies.  The film wasn't particularly smart, and it wasn't perfect - the villain was somewhat weak, and the final fight scene was pretty lame - but it managed to be an extremely enjoyable time at the theater, with great special effects, a cast with loads of chemistry, and a witty, fast-paced script. After making tons of cash at the box office and being overwhelmingly well-received by critics, everyone knew there would be a sequel, but does it carry the same appeal as the first? Find out after the jump.

 Mickey Rourke as Whiplash (though they never actually call him that).

Iron Man 2 picks up basically right where the first movie ended - Tony Stark has made public knowledge of the fact that he is Iron Man, and the United States government is now trying to seize the suit to be used as a government weapon. Meanwhile, Stark is being poisoned by the material in his arc reactor, which both powers the Iron Man suit and keeps the shrapnel in his body from reaching his heart and killing him. Meanwhile, Ivan Vanko, the son of a business associate of Stark's father (Howard Stark), is plotting revenge on Tony for Howard screwing over Ivan's father back in the day. Meanwhile, Justin Hammer, a rival weapons dealer, is attempting to build his own version of the Iron Man suit for mass military consumption. Meanwhile, Tony is being watched very closely by S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury's somewhat secret militant organization, to see if he is fit to join the "Avengers Initiative".

So, as you can see from the above paragraph, there's quite a lot of plot threads happening at once. Iron Man 2 is a movie that has a lot of responsibility - it has the dual task of being the first movie which really starts to lead up to the upcoming Avengers movie, as well as having to support it's own canon and lead up to it's inevitable next sequel. The movie mostly does a good job of keeping all the balls in the air, but it's somewhat unfocused, which is a bit of a shame as the first film was pretty damn tight in terms of pacing. Part of the problem (and this happens with a lot of comic book sequels) is that there's no more origin story to rely on. This means that it's a bit more difficult on the writer's part to come up with new and exciting situations for the character, because that initial learning curve for the character is lost. Overall, I thought the movie did a pretty solid job of keeping everything together, but I'm a comic book fan; for someone who doesn't know about The Avengers film, or doesn't even know who The Avengers are, I'd imagine the film would seem rather bloated. We're not talking Spider-Man 3 levels here, but there's a few too many THINGS happening at once, and it doesn't always pay off.

Everyone from the first film is just as great here as they were then - Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow have a lot of chemistry as Tony Stark and his assistant, Pepper Potts, and I liked that Jon Favreau gave his character a bigger part in this movie (he's the director, in case you didn't know, but also plays Happy Hogan). Don Cheadle replaces Terrence Howard as James Rhodes, and fits right in with the returning cast. In terms of the newcomers, Sam Rockwell does a great job as the weasel-y Justin Hammer; Scarlett Johansson doesn't have much to work with as Natasha Romanoff (AKA Black Widow) but she's just fine despite her lack of a Russian accent (better than having a bad accent I suppose); Samuel L. Jackson is okay as Nick Fury, but he's pretty obviously just playing himself and not the actual character; and Mickey Rourke, despite overacting a bit, particularly in the beginning of the movie, does a good job as the sinister Ivan Vanko.

OF COURSE I CAN'T STOP YELLING, 'CUZ THAT'S HOW I TALK!!

I actually want to talk about Ivan Vanko a little bit, because one of the sacrifices made to get all that plot into the film was character development on the part of some of the new faces (though the movie actually does a good job of expanding the characters of the returning cast, most notably - and importantly - Tony).  Ivan Vanko is touted as the main villain of Iron Man 2, but he's not really on-screen all that much, and while he hints at having a bit of depth, he never really does more than that; he's also a little bit TOO ridiculous, being a dude who clearly knows his way in a fistfight AND a brilliant scientist. It's just a bit too much to swallow, even from a comic book movie. The Whiplash in this movie is sort of a mash-up of the comic book Whiplash and Crimson Dynamo, another big Iron Man villain, and this generally works out pretty well. He fares better than Iron Monger from the first film, but I was really disappointed with his action scenes. He only gets two in the whole movie, and they're both extremely short and feature him getting beaten way too easily.

Ah, those action scenes though. I'll admit, none of them have that same exhilarating, fresh feeling as in the first movie - again, one of the problems with not having an origin story - but aside from the really weak Whiplash scenes, they're pretty well done. I won't ruin too much, but I will say that the last fight was, shamefully, just as weak as in the first movie. Overall though, there's some pretty cool stuff here.

Look, Iron Man 2 is not The Dark Knight; but then, the movie never really tries to be anything other than an entertaining summer popcorn flick. At the end of the day, is it as good, as fun, or as exciting as the first one? No, it's not. It's bloated whereas the first one was tightly-paced, it's a bit cheesy whereas the first one was able to be undeniably cool; it's big, it's dumb, and it's predictable in the most Hollywood way possible. But it still nails the characters, serves up some solid action scenes, and throws in some great chemistry between its cast. If you hated the first Iron Man, this won't change your mind; if you liked the first one, you'll PROBABLY like this one.  Me? I dug it, but I've got to admit that I walked away from the theater feeling just a little bit hollow.

Stuff That I Liked:
- Well done translation of the characters from the comic
- Snappy, rapid-fire dialogue
- Good performances by most of the cast
- Returning characters are expanded upon from the first film
- Some pretty sweet action scenes
- Doesn't try to be anything it's not
- The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 of the series -  not as well done as the first, goofier and harder to take seriously, but still fun.


Stuff That I Didn't:
- Lacks the freshness of the first film
- Tries to do too many things at once, sacrificing new character development and pacing
- Extremely predictable story structure, sometimes relying on some weird Deus Ex Machina-type stuff.
- Lacks narrative tension
- Some shots that are just plain cheesy
- Introduction of lead-up threads to Avengers movie could turn off non-comic book fans
- Whiplash is kind of a pussy

Stuff That I'm Freaking Out About: Marvel Vs. Capcom 3

Holy fucking shit.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!!

MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 3 IS REAL!!!!!!!!!

Trailer:




This has been a wet dream for all Vs. game fans since the second game came out.  I actually can't believe this is real.  A playable version of the game is going to be at E3 this year (in June).  I can't wait to see it in action!

That's all really.

Real post tomorrow (probably).

Stuff That I Played: Mass Effect 2 (Part 2)

Note: DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THROUGH THE GAME OR CARE ABOUT IT BEING SPOILED FOR YOU. Seriously. Don't read this. If you want a non-spoiler look at the game, go read the first Mass Effect 2 post, and come back here when you inevitably go buy the game on my recommendation and feverishly play through it.

Here's a picture so that you don't see the first couple sentences:







Now we get into the fun stuff. This isn't really a review, just some random thoughts on the game.

-Holy crap, that opening scene is amazing. It really makes you prepared to shoulder the responsibility of the suicide mission. Dying and being put back together? Crazy shit. It's also a really good reasoning for how Shepard is able to change his appearance and class from the first game (if you choose for him to do so). Makes me wonder what they'll do with the next game though; how could they live up to such an epic opening scene? And how will they validate the change in looks? It's not like they can make him die and come back to life again.

-Shame on Bioware's marketing department for ruining one of the best parts of the game in the commercials for it: Mordin singing a Salarian version of Gilbert & Sullivan's Major-General's Song. It is definitely the funniest scene in the game and a great reward for getting to know the character. Too bad the surprise of it was taken away. Sigh.

-Romances work a little bit strangely in this game. In the first one it was easy; you choose between two people. But in this one there's three love interests, which complicates things. I spent the whole game trying to bang Miranda, so I rejected both Jack and Tali. And then I didn't get to screw Miranda. I don't know why it happened; I think it might be because in the Jack and Miranda argument I sided with Jack. But then I smoothed everything over with Miranda using my mad Charm skillz, so I don't know what happened. It wasn't my fault Miranda was being a twat! So what do we learn from Mass Effect 2? If you want to have a relationship with someone, always agree with them, even if you're morally opposed to their actions.

-Relating to that, why go I get evil points for rejecting somebody I have no interest in? Especially when those people are either A) psychotic or B) an alien who has to wear a suit at all times or risk dying. Video games still have a long way to go to portray a realistic romance.

-Speaking of portraying realistic things, while I really like the morality system and the way dialogue works (and the interruption system which is added in just enough so that it's not annoying but keeps you on your toes during scenes), I found it too....easy in a way. By that I mean that as long as you're cool with gaining a lot of points for either Paragon or Renegade, the Charm or Intimidate options are always the "right" option; they almost always end up with the best overall result. This is especially problematic when you're importing a character because you start off with extra points, so from the get-go you can already solve most problems pretty easily when presented with them. I still love the system, but a bit more depth would be nice.

-Just to support what I said about characters in yesterday's post, I found myself liking and being interested in Tali a lot more in this game than in the first one, even though her personality is largely the same. Again, it comes down to making the character useful to the player.

-Seeing Wrex again was awesome. Totally worth the re-load I had to do for the first game to save him.

-My personal favourite character (not counting Garrus who is even more badass in this game than he is in the first) was Mordin. I love how his way of speaking matches his personality; very analytical and direct-to-the-point, never bothering to use pronouns. I also liked the moral dilemma which comes with him having created the second Krogan genophage, and the way that throughout the game he becomes kinder and even seems to regret his actions a bit more. He seems to grow the most as a character throughout the game.

-That being said, shout outs to Grunt, Thane, and especially Legion. Legion is not a great character, and he's the last crewmate you meet so you don't have as much time to get to know him, but what he does is really expand the Mass Effect world and the inner workings of the Geth. Through him, you find out that the Geth that you fought in the first game was only a small fraction of the Geth that actually exist; probably around 5 percent. This means a few things: 1) that there's a serious SHITLOAD of Geth out there, 2) that as a society, they're probably not as evil as originally assumed, 3) that with so many Geth existing, the Reapers must be a pretty serious threat for them to want to ally with you, and most interestingly, 4) that the Geth are actually capable of individual thought and will. Really neat stuff.

-If you played through the game and got the "Shepard dies" ending, then why the hell did you even play through the game at all? You obviously didn't like the game very much because you didn't do any of the loyalty missions or upgraded your ship. For Shepard to die at the end, you need to have all TEN (or 11 with Zaeed) of your squadmates die first. This means that three people died on the Normandy, one character got a rocket to the face, one character got shot in the gut, one character got eaten by the Collector swarm, your two squadmates died after destroying the human Reaper, and the rest of them were killed as the second ground team. If this happened to you, you are a failure.

-Speaking of people dying during the final mission, that mission was wicked. I was curious how they would use all of your crew, and they did not disappoint. Assigning different jobs to your crewmates was fun, and really made the suicide mission seem a lot bigger while actually retaining the same gameplay of the rest of the game. Very well done smoke-and-mirrors act, Bioware.

-I wonder exactly what they'll do with the next game. It is the end of this trilogy, but I don't know how they'll make it anymore epic than this game. How will your team work? Will they make it bigger than the 10 or 11 person team in this game? I can't see that working very well, unless the game is a lot longer and there are way more powers, which in my opinion wouldn't really be a positive. Furthermore, who will return from the past games? By destroying the Normandy and skipping 2 years at the beginning of this game, they give you a reason for having a different crew than the original Mass Effect. Without that luxury (as by the ominous sight of the Reaper fleet at the end of the game, it would make sense for them to pick up Mass Effect 3 where this one left off), where will the crew from this game go? You're telling me that after surviving the suicide mission, they're just going to up and leave? I'll cry blasphemy if Garrus isn't in Mass Effect 3, by the way.

-I'd like to see vehicles back in the next game. Not if they're as terrible as in the first game, but if Bioware can find a way to make it work, it'd be cool. Space dogfights?

-The upgrade system is great but the planet scanning has to go. The problem is making the universe seem really big and encouraging exploration without resorting to searching barren levels (Mass Effect) or having a point-and-click minigame (Mass Effect 2). Another reason why I think vehicles should be back if used properly.

-Totally thought of one other thing! Mass Effect 3 is going to need a shitload of work in terms of writing. Allow me to explain. See, in the last game there were only a few major things that could happen in regards to your crew: Ashley or Kaidan died and Wrex either died or didn't. The solution to this is simple; none of the people who could have died are in your crew in Mass Effect 2. A couple dialog tweaks and you're good. But by having such a large squad, and by having the possibility that some, or all of them could die, Bioware now has a ton of variables to worry about for Mass Effect 3; it's not a cut-and-dry "they all died or they all lived" situation. You've got a squad of 10 or so people; some may have died, others may have lived. Considering this, how will Bioware be able to work the characters in Mass Effect 2 into the inevitable third game? Are they just going to ignore the entire team completely? That would be a real waste of great characters. The script for the first Mass Effect game was reportedly about 4-5 novels long. Mass Effect 2 is longer, so it's pretty fair to say it's bumped up to about 6-7 novels worth. With all these character variables, plus the fact that it's got to tie up small events and decisions made in the first game as well, they're going to need a VERY long game and a VERY long script. Needless to say, I can't wait for the first Mass Effect 3 announcement (and make no mistake, it is happening; the loading screens even tell you so).

Well, that's all for today, folks. The next post will either be a music feature I was cooking up or a look at the Marvel Ultimate Universe which I am currently in the process of reading through.

Feel free to comment!
-Daniel