Gwyneth Paltrow is an outstanding actress. She seems to have a gift for saying things that tick people off, like snotting on the land of her birth. She blows a lot of smoke about being a vegetarian but regularly posts recipes containing meat on her website, goop.com, and wears goodly amounts of suede and leather. I've got no idea what she's really like as a person, but she's got a public persona that I don't think I could avoid fast enough were I for some unfathomable reason ever to meet her.
Which is why I say she's an awesome actress, because when Ms. Paltrow is playing Virginia "Pepper" Potts in Iron Man 2, she's radiant, witty, sharp and as likable as a cute puppy. If she could figure out a way to stay in that character more often...
The movie, by the way, is just as much of a load of fun as is Ms. Paltrow. Robert Downey, Jr., continues to bring the right mix of cynicism, ravaged nobility, desperation and wackiness to make Tony Stark seem like a real person, for all that he has billions of dollars and flies around in an armored suit. Don Cheadle ably replaces Terrence Howard as Lt. Col James "Rhodey" Rhodes -- Cheadle seems to be able to bring a little bit more smart-aleck to the screen than did Howard, so perhaps the trade-out works for the best.
The villains work well also. Sam Rockwell seems ready to take up the Smarmy Sociopathic Yuppie character niche previously owned by James Spader and as Justin Hammer, shows how his desire to one-up the effortlessly cool Stark leads him to cross more lines than is good for one's legal status. Mickey Rourke could have been given more to do as Whiplash, but the upside is that he doesn't have to wear the ridiculous costume the character had in the comic books -- a lavender jumpsuit with orange fabric flaring out from the backs of his legs and a wavy topknot plume on the top of his head.
Iron Man 2 wastes a little bit of time helping set up the eventual Avengers movie that Marvel is aiming for in 2012, but since that time also features Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanov/The Black Widow, it's a happy little diversion. A lot of fun and a good way to kick off the summer movie season here in little ol' 2010.
7 comments:
Yep.
with you on the stark/potts relationship: who knew that screwball romantic comedy was possible in a superhero movie? (though my girls went to gwinny's private school in manhattan, and your assessment of her off-screen persona is on the mark: the teachers who remember her do not remember her fondly. and that's the kind version.)
didn't love the flick, though. a little sam rockwell goes an awfully long way...and his character made zero sense. one minute an incompetent idiot, the next a man capable of brilliant baddery. it's like they rolled up gene hackman's lex luthor and ned beatty's idiot sidekick into one schizophrenic character. also, stark was maybe too much of a jerk for too much of the movie. oh, and it was too long, as ever.
but bravo cheadle! and favreau: how great was his fight scene? (and, of course, bravo johannson...for rocking that cat suit.)
prediction: thor will be epically silly. what say you?
I'm pretty afraid that it will be -- I think they'll try to fit it into their "Avengers" arc when the only two ways to keep it from being the dud of duds are 1) Go the full Adam West route and play it completely for laughs or 2)make a much more serious film about what it's like to try to live life as a handicapped human being when you've got the power of a god awaiting your whim.
I don't think either way will fit the arc, so they'll play it straight but not with any depth, so epically silly may be the high mark.
Not with Kenneth Branagh at the helm. He doesn't do campy. Unless they have replaced him, I bet it goes more Beowulf than Batman.
Branaugh's the only reason I am not completely pessimistic ;-)
all that means, friar, is that you've forgotten "mary shelley's 'frankenstein'"...remember that one, and you'll go all the way to pessimistic...
O thou destroyer of hope!
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