Iron Man 2 vs Two Girls And A Guy

Ryan: Hey, you’ve seen Iron Man 2 by now, right?

Cliff: Yep. Liked it. You?

Ryan: Yep. I liked it.

Cliff: Cool. Pretty excited about Inception.

Ryan: Yeah, I saw the full trailer before Iron Man 2. Looks like a good time.

Cliff: Yeah.

Ryan: Okay then. Do we not—is there more to say about Iron Man 2?

Cliff: It’s fun? It looks pretty good? The best scene from the trailer wasn’t in the movie?

Ryan: I waited the entire movie for it: Pepper kisses the Iron Man helmet and tosses it out of a plane. Tony jumps after it and says, “You complete me” before disappearing out of the frame.

Cliff: And…just in the trailer.

Ryan: I hate that. It’s like a 45 second scene, it’s funny and charming, builds the characters, plus, it allows me to say that my favorite part was when she kissed the helmet.

Cliff: And you hardly ever get to say that.

Ryan: Why you taking that away from me, Favreau?

Cliff: Well you can’t say he didn’t put anything else in. It’s over two hours, has a dozen or so characters, an action sequence every ten minutes, great actors and a setup for the Avengers movie.

Ryan: I’d have preferred more attention on those great actors and less on the setup of the Avengers movie. Let that movie set itself up.

Cliff: It is busy as hell.

Ryan: Yeah, I hate when fun things need editors. The Senate hearings could go completely, for my money, and devote more time to Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke.

Cliff: We should recap a little, I suppose. Tony Stark is still Iron Man, but he’s public now, and there’s a lot of controversy surrounding—

Ryan: GARRY SHANDLING’S FACE.

Cliff: What was that?

Ryan: Sorry. Had to. Had to be said. Continue. Pretend I’m not here.

Cliff: Well, since the Iron Man suit is a weapon, and was used as such throughout the previous movie, there are people in the government who think it should become property of the U.S. military.

Ryan: And of course now Iron Man also has extra attention from Nick Fury, as well as  new bad guys, played by Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke, each of whom do a great job, especially considering they don’t get cool villain costumes.

Cliff: Rourke does. I think his costume was an original take on the comic version of Whiplash.

Ryan: Nope. Those were his clothes from home. I think I read that somewhere.

Cliff: Anyway, Rourke is Russian, and thinks Tony’s father stole the plans for the Iron Man suit’s power core from his father. So he builds his own suit to get revenge, and then is funded by Sam Rockwell for more revenge, and then some.

Ryan: That’s kind of where it loses me a bit. Rockwell wants to get rich and famous like Tony Stark, so he has Mickey Rourke improve his battle suits, which is done by turning them into robots. When they were going to be battle suits with soldiers inside, there was an element of risk, but once they’re just robots, well then who cares if one of them gets destroyed?

Cliff: Exactly. The tension is removed from nearly every fight scene because of that.

Ryan: And with a cast this big, and this vibrant, you want some friction.

Cliff: All of the above would have filled a movie, but there’s also Don Cheadle as Rhodes, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, and Scarlet Johanssen as Natalie/Black Widow. They’re all good, but just sort of wedged into too many scenes. Pepper is suspicious and threatened by Natalie at first, but then they become friends off camera? I guess?

Ryan: I still really like Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, even though her role in the plot this time was almost identical to last time. She’s basically Tony Stark’s Alfred, only, you know: no carbs. Johannsen is fine, but isn’t asked to do much more than she would be asked to do in, say, a perfume commercial. She looks hot in the suit, is believable doing the fights, the end. But I guess when the female lead is the harried assistant to the male lead, our expectations for the second female lead should be low.

Cliff: The whole reason to see this, besides Robots Fighting, is Robert Downey Jr. His take on Tony Stark is inspired, especially in contrast to the dozen characters he’s paired with. Depending on the scene, it’s an all-out action movie, a spy thriller, a comedy, a satire of government, and in Tony’s infection and addiction, a fairly strong drama.

Ryan: It truly is great casting. And it’s not as inspired as some have implied, either. First of all, the Tony Stark that's existed in the Marvel comics universe for decades is represented almost completely in the Iron Man movies, and that’s due largely to Robert Downey Jr. who not only looks like Stark, but also humanizes his arrogance just enough to be tolerable. Also, and this is more important, once the helmet is on, you better have someone dynamic inside, otherwise we’ll forget he even exists. The same could be said for that huge cast. If Robert Downey Jr. wasn’t so charismatic and energetic, he’d be lost as the star of his own movie.

Cliff: I think it’s impossible to lose Robert Downey Jr. in a movie. He’s unrecognizable in Tropic Thunder, yet that role could only have been played by him, and no matter who he shares the screen with, out of all those players, he’s the one you want more of.

Ryan: I’d go so far as to say he needs it. Robert Downey Jr. isn’t as affected as some of his contemporaries, but he’s just constantly vibrating and buzzing and…doing. Even when he’s silent and still, I keep waiting for him to go off on a rapid-fire monologue, or a backflip or something.

Cliff: Yeah, I’d prepare for directing Downey in a movie like I’d prepare for taking kids on a long roadtrip. Gotta make sure he has enough to do so he won’t bug you the whole time.

Ryan: Have you ever seen Two Girls and a Guy? It’s Downey, Heather Graham and Natasha Gregson Wagner arguing in an apartment.

Cliff: That’s one of the most Nineties sentences ever written.

Ryan: He’s dating them both, and they find out and surprise him at his apartment. And then the bulk of the movie is them hashing it out. Downey’s character is a lying, cheating actor, and he never stops talking. Ever. There’s a really brilliant scene in which he fakes his own suicide in attempt to get out of trouble with his girlfriends. He also, of course, wants credit for how well he faked it. The performance never stops, for Downey or his character, and it’s impressive and exhausting.

Cliff: I’ve seen it, and I think an interesting contrast to Iron Man 2 is that one more character would have been too many in Two Girls and a Guy. Two Girls and Two Guys wouldn’t have worked.

Ryan: Meanwhile, Iron Man 2 could have trimmed characters here and there. Two Girls and a Guy was made at the height of Downey’s personal troubles, and it shows. He’s desperate and manic, and looks a little…hungry. It works for the movie, but in retrospect, it’s unsettling. In another reality, that might have been Downey’s last movie. That our biggest gripe about him now is that, basically, the movie he’s in is too entertaining? I bet that makes him laugh.

Iron Man 2: B

Two Girls and a Guy: B+