Iron Man 2 (2010)

[oyceter]

I rewatched this to try and catch more bits of Black Widow characterization, and wow, now I remember why I was so very hesitant when going in to watch Captain America last year.

So yeah. Despite overflow happy hearts from The Avengers, still hate Tony and Iron Man here, am appalled by how he treats Pepper, hate the objectification of all the women, really hate how Tony's statement about solving world peace in the very beginning is never really dissected, and overall am left with very bad taste in my mouth.

ETA: Also, I found it notable how the suit is used in IM2 vs. Avengers. Obviously both movies use it as a weapon, but in Avengers, the first shot of the suit is Tony using it to build or repair something underwater. In IM2, he wears it more as armor, despite the fact that the use of it is killing him more quickly; it still symbolizes invincibility, albeit a false one. He parties in the suit, lounges around in the suit, and then fights in the suit. And while Tony in IM2 does construct some sort of particle collision thing to generate a new element in his house (!! haha), he does this in "civilian" clothes. I also think the rock music and Tony recklessly brandishing a giant hammer to knock holes in walls is much more characteristic of IM2 than the view of science and engineering in Avengers.

Science is the thing Tony does in IM2 when he isn't suited—he spends his time reading up on Howard Stark's stuff while in a lounging robe—it's something that can be separated from the suit, even though it's what makes the suit. Whereas in Avengers, you have Tony using the suit for purposes other than fighting, most notably, to repair the helicarrier. And I think that character integration is what lets him reach out to Bruce in the movies, since Bruce is also trying to do the scientist/fighter dichotomy thing.

Also, although Howard Stark's eventual confidence in future Tony is played as somewhat nice, seriously, wtf? Hey, let me ignore you all your life, and now that you're grown, I'll just thrust something I couldn't complete on you and say it's because I had that much faith in you! Ptui.

Comments

[laurashapiro]

I had a lot of problems with IM, but IM2 was appalling on so many levels. I had little rage fits the whole time: daddy issues, inventing a new element (WTF), and treatment of women were at the top of my list of overall frustration. Plus, with his impending demise, they added manpain to the mix. If it weren't for RDJ's charisma and the crackling banter, I would have bailed on the whole enterprise.

I like what you're saying here about how is relationship to the suit (and what it represents) changes in The Avengers. I didn't pick up on that, but it's a nifty distinction to make.

[oyceter]

I don't remember much of IM and haven't been up for rewatching it because the little I can remember of the Afghanistan scenes are so ARGH.

And I'm glad IM2 at least points out that his manpain manifests in completely stupid and self-destructive ways, but I really wish there were more of how pointless it was and how much Rhodey and Pepper were keeping things going.

[laurashapiro]

IM is all about "yay US military industrial complex!" and "boo, randomly evil terrorists who are randomly evil!" I appreciate that they tried to give Tony an ethical crisis once he saw how his weapons were being used, but the implication that weapons manufacture would be perfectly okay as long as the right (white) people were using them makes me facepalm forever.

[la_vie_noire]

I hated every Iron Man movie to date, that was why I was very... skeptic about Avengers.

(IM1 was the worse for me with all that glorification to neo-colonialism, racism and genocide... it was disgusting.)

[la_vie_noire]

And I still dislike Tony Stark due to the IM movies. Not even Avengers made things better for me.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I didn't do the IM1 rewatch because the little I can remember of the Afghanistan scenes were quite enough. Ugh.

Ahahaha. I was all fonder of him after Avengers, even though he's still my least favorite member of the team, but now that I have rewatched IM2, I totally remember why I hated Tony Stark!

[la_vie_noire]

Yes, I can admit Avengers truly did him a service. With his interaction with Bruce Banner... and that's about it for me. (I can reblog him though.)

[oyceter]

OMG, the science banter gets me every time.

[jinian]

Because I am a bad person, I have always liked Tony despite the MAJOR PROBLEMS with the movies. Do I want to be around him in the long term? I think NO. Do I want to shag him senseless a few times because OMG the sexy nerdbrains and cute (and yes okay I like the arrogance)? 'Fraid so.

[oyceter]

Heeee! For me, the arrogance completely turns me off, which is why the Captain America movie is the one that actually made me want to watch Avengers, heh! I like Tony much more in Avengers because although he's still a ton of things I don't like, at least he's not being self-destructive and he's actively kind of nice even to more than one person!

[jinian]

Well, obviously I liked that better. :) I think my brain has been doing a fandom thing all along, the "Malfoy is actually sweet and misunderstood and funny although that is not supported by the text in any way!" thing.

[troisroyaumes]

I recently watched both Iron Man movies in order to eventually get around to watching the Avengers (though I still haven't seen it yet).

Most of my reaction to the movies was that Tony Stark was a terrible human being and not even in an interesting way. I still don't understand why the character is so popular. The only reason why I'm still interested in the Avengers is because reviews have said he doesn't get that much screentime. I honestly have never before rooted so much for a main character in a movie to die. D:

And auuuugh, I am still furious over the Evil Terrorists and the Arab equivalent of the Magical Negro with a Chinese name who dies for Tony Stark's sake. SO FURIOUS.

Also, I have trouble believing in Tony Stark's "genius"--the science and engineering in both movies is so pasted on that I associate Tony Stark with the jerks in college who were clever but not that intelligent in the end.

(...as you can see, I've been building up a rant on the Iron Man movies for a week now, and your post just became the perfect place to spew! --;)

[oyceter]

Oh man, I vaguely recall the magical POC who dies in IM1 and just... yes, there is a reason why I didn't rewatch that one. But yeah. I half watched the Iron Man movies on the airplane the first time, and although I could kind of see what people were talking about re: RDJ, I just hate the premise of the movies and the character and everything so much! The militarization and how no one argues that privatization of world peace could be bad and etc etc etc.

He does work much better for me in the Avengers movie, though YMMV? Largely because it's the charm without the giant displays of ego and money, and because his relationship with Pepper is written so much more equally. Also for some of the science geekery, heh.

[troisroyaumes]

I generally don't find RDJ charming to begin with, which is probably why I didn't find anything to temper my hate for the character. But I guess I'll settle for him being nicer to Pepper and not too much on screen. (Ugh, she deserves so much better than him!)

[oyceter]

*nods* Yeah. And if you want, I'm totally up for seeing it again, though of course it is also okay if not! I mostly just went in with no expectations whatsoever, but I am not sure how I would react if I saw it after all the fannish squee and etc.

[thomasyan]

In the first shot of Iron Man in Avengers, is he repairing something? I thought he was hacking into those underwater cables.

[oyceter]

I am not entirely sure? One of the recaps says that he's adding a power source or something into the stuff for Stark Tower so they can make it self sustaining?

[thomasyan]

*laugh* That makes sense: "I am going to use good, clean energy for Stark Tower, which is a good thing, so in my mind, it totally justifies my finding it too much trouble to go through official channels to get permissions, so I'll just hack in and reroute the wiring."

I suppose he does have official sanction, but I think it is in character for him to just go ahead and do it.

[oyceter]

Ahaha so true! I think I had just kind of assumed that he owned all the wiring as well, since, you know, Tony Stark.

[jesuswasbatman]

I agree with you so much about IM2. It was my disappointment over that film that made me give up on the Marvel movies until The Avengers. I can see given Tony's character why they gave the films to a director best known for dudebro comedies, but it has really bad effects.

After IM2 I wished I'd seen a film with Rhodey and a more morally ambiguous Danko as whacky action-movie-buddies.

[oyceter]

Yeeeaaaah... I never really got into the Avengers-verse movies largely because I disliked both Iron Man films so much. It (weirdly) took Captain America to get me a bit more interested.

Thankfully the Avengers movie has been fairly antithetical to the Iron Man ones!

[sasha_feather]

The part where he randomly builds a particle accelerator!

I believe there was a scene in Futurama where they order a particle accelerator from IKEA; maybe that scene is parodying this movie.

[oyceter]

Ahahahaha awesome!

Random 2 month late comment is random!

[nightowl]

(Catching up on blogs after being out of the country for months and just saw Avengers so wanted to comment. Hope you don't mind how out-of-the-blue this is.)

Hm, so. Leaving aside the bigger issues of racism and the shallow not-treatment of the US military-industrial-complex (because there's not really any room for debate re: how problematic those things are), I guess I thought the whole point of Tony Stark is that he IS kind of a rich asshole, but he's a charismatic rich asshole trying to do the right thing? I like the character because I don't really feel as though the movie gave him a free pass. In IM2, his manpain was shown to be childish and ridiculous and not a good thing, with both Rhody & Pepper getting totally fed up with him. I also felt like the IM movies were supposed to be showing the character slowly getting his act together (having an ethical dilemma in movie 1 & solving it in a characteristically rich-man/egotistical way, a sort of melt-down in movie 2 & recovering), so that by the time you get to Avengers, he's much nicer and more bearable as a human being even without the sparkling banter (I have to admit that the banter is a reason why I like the character in IM & IM2 more than he deserved). I guess I see this character as trying, within the confining boundaries of his upbringing and his social status and his personality, to be a decent person, and fucking up a lot (given how poorly he deals with his interpersonal problems). It's the trying that scores points with me, and maybe with other people who like Tony Stark & the IM movies?

Also, I really liked Pepper, how in-control and no-nonsense she was. It was great to have a female lead w/o superpowers who wasn't totally useless (read: Mary Jane in the Spiderman movies) and who was on equal footing with the hero. Tony treated her really badly in movie 2 but I felt like it was treating an *equal* badly and that he never looked down on her or thought she was inferior. I mean, she was practically his keeper; you really got the sense Tony Stark would be pretty useless without her. Which, upon reflection, does play into the whole "women are expected to take care of their man" thing, but in this case it feels less annoying (for me) because I get the sense that Pepper has real agency. I don't know. I am probably also giving these movies too much credit. *sigh*

...creating a new element was WTF up to here though, not gonna lie.

In a somewhat non-sequitur fashion, totally hear what you're saying regarding Captain America. Given that it's, well, Captain America, I was totally surprised that it turned out as un-problematic as it did. Also Steve Rogers is a breath of fresh air; very boy-scout "American" but without being obnoxious about it. It's just so nice to see a hero be a hero without being a dick.

Re: Random 2 month late comment is random!

[oyceter]

Late comments always welcome! This is why I have email notifications set up ^_^.

Re: Tony Stark... heh, this is probably one of those agree to disagree cases. I mean, I do think he does try and that IM2 definitely highlights his manpain and asshat behavior for what it is. My thing is just that I get to the "rich entitled white guy" bit and lose pretty much every shred of patience. So I can take him in Avengers, when it's not about his issues and etc., but I suspect IM3 is probably going to make me growly again =(.

I kind of felt like he didn't look at Pepper as his equal in IM2... he doesn't ask her about being CEO, just kind of dumps it on her. I mean, that is a pretty big life change to push on someone without consulting them about it. I do think the power dynamic shifts after she's been running the company, though, and I love their banter in Avengers.

I did have an interesting conversation with troisroyaumes, though, that involved the speculation that maybe some people like Tony because he is rich and entitled and a geek who gets to be smart, all at the same time. Tari mentioned she just doesn't care, because when and where she grew up, geek guys and being smart wasn't an outcast thing, so Tony just reminds her of a lot of jerky geek guys she knows. I feel kind of the same way, given my own school experiences, but YMMV! Anyway, have no idea if that explains anything, but I thought it was interesting.

Re: Random 2 month late comment is random!

[nightowl]

(Ack I take forever to answer anything nowadays! >_< )

I get to the "rich entitled white guy" bit and lose pretty much every shred of patience.

I can understand that, definitely.^^ There does tend to be an expectation that we should be super patient with the problems of rich entitled white guys because they're so Special. I guess I am just a sucker for people trying to be decent no matter who they are.^^

And it is an interesting point about the geek aspect of Tony Stark that I'd never considered. I don't think that's really why I like him personally, but I can see how that would make him appealing. I guess for me, the "science geek" aspect of him wasn't a huge thing (at least in IM - it was much cuter & more obvious in Avengers) because comic book science is...um. And he didn't really act as if he passionately loved science in IM, more that it was just a very powerful tool that he's very good at using. (Kind of like Batman.) So I definitely liked that aspect of Tony Stark in Avengers more than I did in IM (in the sense that him being geeky never crossed my mind).

As for Pepper - yeah, you're right that it's a really dickish move on Tony's part. I don't really know how to explain the positive feeling I got from Pepper's & Tony's interactions in both the IM movies. I guess maybe I should say that I felt Tony Stark *thought of* Pepper as an equal, but was too self-absorbed to *treat* her as an equal ought to be treated. He would never have dumped the CEO job on her if he didn't completely trust her and respect her abilities, but his selfishness and lack of social skills makes him show his respect in counter-productive ways. Not trying to defend his fail, just describing why I still got the sense that this couple could work and be a healthy one based on mutual respect. (As demonstrated by their interaction in Avengers.) Eventually. With a lot more trying from Tony Stark. (There's this scene in IM1 that I love, where he tries out his suit for the first time and then slams face-first into a wall. I feel like that's him in his relationship with Pepper - tries something, flies into wall, lands in undignified heap.)

As for IM3...um, yeah, I just found out that instead of being the Iron Patriot, the villain of the movie is apparently going to be "The Mandarin," and you guessed it, Tony Stark gets to fight an Evil Chinese Dude! -_______- (They cast Sir Ben Kingsley, because...I guess half-Indian = Chinese. I just. I won't start.) *sigh* Hollywood, every time I start liking you again you proceed to piss me off in the same old ways.

So I think I am going to save my money for Captain America 2 or something.