Observations on the ‘Iron Man’ sequel: One geek’s perspective and nitpicks

• One does not put a twist in a dirty martini. You either serve it with olives or a twist of lemon, not both. I don’t care how sexy Natasha Romanoff is, Tony Stark wouldn’t except that drink from her. He’s a refined drunk.
• Emily Blunt would’ve made a superior Black Widow to Scarlett Johansson. There is no way I believed Scarlett was a Russian-born redhead with bio-engineered augmentation that increased her strength and retarded her aging. She’s just not that good an actress to covey all that in her 20 minutes of screen time.
• The Iron Man armor would compensate for Tony’s drunken stagger. Even three sheets to the wind, Tony would be walking just fine thanks to the armor’s internal gyroscopes. Duh!
• Firing up to 6,000 rounds a minute, War Machine’s M134 minigun would’ve been out of ammo before reaching Stark Expo’s botanical gardens. I’m even being generous by assuming the minigun had its own ammo feed and didn’t share rounds with the rest of War Machine’s arsenal. In fact, why even use a minigun? Tony Stark can build the Iron Man armor, but no one’s come through with an operational electromagnetic railgun, something that’s just about a reality in the real world? Do your research, Favreau.
• I understand that Tony is still getting learning how to use the Iron Man armor in combat situations, but I cannot suspend my disbelief enough to think that James “Rhodey” Rhodes–a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force–wouldn’t be savvy enough to incorporate aerial attack maneuvers when using the War Machine armor. Why punch Whiplash when you could blast him long distance with your repulsors?
• Repulsor beams fired at one another would not cause an explosion, no matter how long the build up. They would merely push off each other. Even if they were to explode, there would be no heat from it. Repulsors release concussive energy, not thermal. Everyone knows that.
• Why didn’t the Black Widow use her electrostatic “widow’s sting” during her fight entering Justin Hammer’s facility? Instead, she used electrostatic discs to incapacitate her attackers. Lame.
• Don’t even get me started on Captain America’s shield.
• Are we to believe that the new element Tony made was adamantium? I hope not. I’m willing to give the filmmakers a lot of leeway when it comes to adapting Marvel history, but can they at least keep Dr. Myron MacLain as the discoverer of the alloy?
• Given the amount of scenes that appeared in the trailer and not in the film, it just goes to show you that ad libbing only works if you have a sturdy story structure to hang it on. Otherwise, what you’re left with is a choppy series of humorous character interactions and gigantic action set pieces instead of a cohesive movie. The first film was this roiling ball of organic chaos generated by the charisma of the performers involved and held in check by a tightly paced plot. That same chaos is evident in the sequel, but it feels artificial. The narrative is too thin to contain it,  letting the audience see the seams that keep the movie together pull, fray and pop. Overall, IM2 is enjoyable and fun to watch, but not entirely satisfying.

NOTE Only one of these is my honest opinion. The others are for comedic effect. So don’t flame me, d-bags.

PHOTOS Paramount/Marvel Entertainment

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