Iron Man 2 Review

Hey, look who's back!

Seeing Iron Man’s likeness on the window of the Burger King on Main Street reminds me that it’s that wonderful time of year once again.

When you’re looking for big budget effects and flashy action scenes, there’s nothing like the summer movie season. You could say it already came more than a few weeks ago with the opening of Kick Ass, but having not seen that film yet I’d say the cream of the blockbuster crop so far is the more recently released Iron Man 2, directed by Jon Favreau and written by Justin Theroux. Oh, before I forget, there are spoilers ahead, so be careful.

This movie starts off well after the events of the first Iron Man movie, as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), thanks to the deeds he’s performed as Iron Man and the decisions he’s made with Stark Industries has, in his own words, successfully privatized world peace. It’s implied that he has somewhat of a good relationship going with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), his company’s profits seem to be in the black, and life just can’t get any better, right? Wrong. It turns out the suit he uses to save lives around the country and the globe is killing him, as the arc reactor in his chest that keeps shards of shrapnel from entering his heart is giving him an unhealthy dose of palladium, resulting in the very visible effects of palladium poisoning. On top of that, the supremely bitter Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), the son of one of his father’s business partners and collaborators, has developed his own version of the arc reactor technology, complete with laser whips, and is out for revenge against Stark for supposedly ruining his life. Things get more complicated when his first fight with Stark catches the eye of both the government, which wants Stark to hand his technology over to the military for further development, and of the CEO of Hammer Industries Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a competitor who wishes to work with Vanko to develop his own variation of Stark’s multi-billion dollar tech as well. Hopefully, with the help of friends and allies such as Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson), and Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), Stark can set everything straight.

A lot of the secondary stars of this film ended up surprising me more than anybody else. I initially thought Cheadle was going to be quite jarring as the new Rhodey, but I thought he did just as good a job as Terrence Howard did in the first film. Scar Jo also gave a pretty good performance as Widow. Of course, RDJ and Paltrow shine with the best performances out of all of them, with their characters portraying the proper mood along with events as they unfold in the story. Paltrow’s performance was especially strong; from the shock and gratefulness she feels when Stark makes her the new CEO, to the stress she is going through later in the film when having to deal with the responsibilities of running the company and dealing with Stark’s secrecy and erratic behavior. The weakest performances in the film definitely have to be Jackson’s Fury and Rourke’s Vanko. Fury in this movie cam off as sort of cheesy and heavily rehearsed, which for a lot of Jackson’s roles these days seems to be par for the course. This is unfortunate, because I like Jackson as an actor, but while I realize the character was practically modeled just for him, I still thought he laid it on a little too thick. Vanko seems to have the opposite problem; a lot of his role seems a bit phoned in. Beyond the two qualities we saw, being a super smart engineer and being all vengeful, he didn’t really seem to have much of a personality to speak of, and while that might not entirely be Rourke’s fault, his acting definitely makes it look that way. Also, while we got to see more of him than we did of Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger in the first film, he still kind of suffers from lack of exposure, especially since during the middle of the film he is mostly waiting and plotting rather than actually doing anything.

Scar Jo here, along with Rockwell, RDJ and Paltrow, all give pretty good performances.

Speaking of the middle, the pacing of this movie really seems to slow down when we get to the deeper parts, most of them involving either Stark feeling futile about his life as the palladium poisoning causes it to slip away, or Vanko brooding and plotting his revenge. I realize that scenes like that might need a little more time, but I just thought they didn’t mesh all that well with the much faster action beats that we saw shortly after the beginning and near the end. Those action scenes were of course great, with some solid fight choreography and some really good dialogue from the characters that kept them entertaining. My favorite ones had to be the one where Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) and Black Widow break into Hammer Industries, and the final fight with Vanko, Iron Man and Rhodey. In both scenes, the heroes play off of each other really well, and come up with really creative moves and strategies to take down the thugs they’re up against.

Admittedly, while the action meshes well with the story and the story seems to be good enough, at least for a comic book movie like this, some elements of the plot seem a bit weird. For example, I know that Stark is a super genius and all, but creating a brand new element? Along with having his father map it out for him while he was still a kid, and the fact that it’s just what he needs to cure his poisoning? I could Google a bunch of arguments as to why this is very implausible, but then I remember that science in comic books isn’t usually on par with the real world, and promptly calm down. I am still a little irritated that it turned out to be such a MacGuffin. I also have to say that while I admire Marvel’s recent attempt at making their superhero films consistent by giving them their own continuity, I’m not sure I appreciated all these references to films that aren’t even out yet. I think this is something I’ll just have to get used to as other films come out, but it’s just kind of annoying that it’s so constant in this movie, especially in the third part and the teaser after the credits.

In short, Iron Man 2 has its own issues with plot elements and weak performances, but it surprised me in how much it got out of some characters as well as the story. I don’t know if it or Kick Ass is the superior super hero movie so far (once again, I didn’t get to see Kick Ass), but it’s certainly a pretty good movie on its own. I can’t wait to see what else this summer will have to offer.

Images courtesy of Eclectic Electronics, Coming Soon.net and trademark Marvel Comics/Paramount Pictures/Disney.

Super Half Assed Triple Review Time!

After a veritable long time drought of posts here, it looks as if it’s time to do yet another super-condensed quickie reviews.

Most of these movies have been out for quite a while though, so I won’t drag things out or use too many details since you guys probably know all about them by now. All I’m going to do here is just dedicate a paragraph to each movie, with each one just relaying my opinion.

Tonight’s movies are Up In The Air, Shutter Island, and How To Train Your Dragon.


With Up In The Air, there really isn’t much wrong here. It seems like Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner have churned out a very relevant, well written flick here. I think a lot of people will definitely be able to relate to the subject matter, and I found the ending to have a bit of a depressing bite to it, it really drove the point of the story home. I won’t spoil too much, but the goals that Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) had hoped to accomplish early on in the film end up seeming really shallow in the end. I’m not sure if it was entirely intentional, but I did kind of notice an overarching theme of how one shouldn’t automatically be so sure about the goals one sets in life, and how one should always prepare for any calamities that may occur, which I thought blended nicely with the premise of the film. As for the acting, I greatly enjoyed the snark of both Clooney’s and Vera Farminga’s characters, and this film also served as a great introduction to Anna Kendrick. She really portrayed her character’s naiveté well, and had some fantastic chemistry with Clooney. I don’t have too many gripes about this film, aside from the second half dragging a little and the utterly soul-crushing conclusion, which had me leaving the theater feeling a little down (although, like I’ve said about this kind of thing before, this was probably intentional). I actually think this can be counted as one of Reitman’s best.

I wish I could say the same about Scorsese’s Shutter Island, but I really think him and screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis could have done better with the execution for such an interesting idea.


There were some parts where they were clearly going for horror, but too much of this movie just seems like stuff that everyone has seen before done way better. The story and plot were also looking pretty good in the previews, but I felt like there were some parts where the themes of the movie were laid on a little too thick, especially the part where they are interviewing inmates of the asylum about the whereabouts and characteristics of the escaped patient, Rachel Solando. The run-up to the climax of the film is sort of weird and off-putting, it becomes a little confusing, and then when we arrive at the conclusion for some reason it just seems all too obvious. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that way about the end of a mystery story before, but judging from other opinions about the movie that I’ve heard from friends and reviewers, I’m at least not alone in thinking that things got kind of confusing. It could be the way it was written, or the way Scorsese had it pan out, but I don’t know, maybe it was just me. Leo DiCaprio isn’t too bad as Teddy Daniels, but I found his fake Boston accent a little irritating, just like I did when he used it in the Departed. If he’s going to do another movie set in New England, I honestly think a voice coach wouldn’t be a bad idea. Michelle Williams was a little chilling in her role as his wife Dolores, and I liked Ben Kingsley a whole lot too. In short, I liked the movie for what it was meant to be, but it could have been written a bit better.


Now on to the most recent flick, Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon. I really, really liked this film, it seems like Dreamworks made a super solid effort to not have the movie’s humor rely entirely on dated pop-culture references and gross “adult” jokes, which is pretty commendable for them. I loved Gerard Butler as the Viking lord Stoick, and Jay Baruchel brings some wonderfully smart assed-ness (ugh, I don’t even know if that’s a word or not, but whatever) to his role as the hero of the film, Hiccup. Yes, that’s his name, but trust me, he’s awesome. I’ll admit, I liked Astrid (America Ferrara) at first, but in the second half of the film she was kind of degenerated to the role of sidekick a little too quickly. I understand she was meant to be a secondary character in the first place, but I still found it a tiny bit off-putting regardless. The Viking kid who was a D&D nerd-type character (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) was kind of annoying. Also, it was really odd that the adult Vikings had brash Scottish accents, while the young’ins sounded like American kids (what makes this even odder was that real Vikings weren’t Scottish or American), but that’s kind of a minor gripe. Everything else though, the 3-D effects, the cinematography, the story, everything down to the extremely well crafted fantasy world, was done great. This film could serve as a good model for Dreamworks’ future films. Also, Toothless was wicked adorable, although that’s not surprising since he was designed by the same artist that did Stitch.

OK, that’s all settled at least. Sorry about it being so half-assed, but there you go.

I’m actually kind of proud that I’ve been able to keep this going for about a year (well, OK, sort of). In the meantime, though, I need to get really serious about forming a regular update schedule for this blog, because there are a lot of good-looking movies coming out this summer, and the window of time to talk about them in a relevant manner is shrinking.

Heck, Iron Man 2 is due in a couple of weeks, and between Mickey Rourke laser whipping racecars Crimson Dynamo style, and Scarlett Johannson as Black Widow, there’s no shortage of stuff to be excited about. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to review it.

Enjoy the pictures here, I got them from The Vine, Daemon's Movies, and Dreamworks. Sorry, I'm too tired for captions.

Oscar Night Update

OK, there's no better way to say this, so I'm just gonna say it. I decided to scrap those two blu-ray reviews I was going to do.

I regret fucking this up, but it's already pretty far out since the both of them were released, and there just wasn't enough time or interest to do them. Way too much going on. Besides, I think I'd rather focus on what's currently going on anyway. Also, there are a few things I want to write about soon that aren't just reviews, so I got to plan those out, too.

I do have a review planned out for tomorrow, but we'll see what happens.

Anyway, I guess the oscars are in about an hour. Best picture is probably gonna come down to either Hurt Locker or Avatar. I'm personally hoping the former will win, but knowing how political this all is it will probably be the latter. Ehhhh.....

My Computer Asplode

Well, I know you guys are tired of hearing this at this point, but for the 40,908th time, I'm sorry about the serious lack of updates.

The original plan, honest, was to keep updating through January, but my laptop caught some serious Trojans, which screwed things up so badly that I pretty much had to take it to the shop.

Long story short, after an impromptu hiatus Cinematic Supersonic is now back up and running, and yes, I plan to have those blu-ray reviews up by the end of the week. They're for movies that I saw over the summer but never got a chance to review, the first one being for The Hangover and the other Inglorious Basterds. I kind of feel bad about not reviewing these movies sooner, because both blu-rays came out around Christmas time and I think whomever reads this blog would've expected something by now. No worries though, they're coming soon.

Avataaaaaaaaaaar

Hello again! Once again I am super late to the party! It seems the bandwagon’s pulled in to Sherlock Holmes station already. Oh good, another movie I really want to see, but haven’t yet. I know, what a surprise!

OK, ok. First off, I hope everyone had a good holiday. Second off, while I also hope you guys enjoy this review, I must admit that there’s not much I’m about to say that hasn’t been said a million times already, so I’m just gonna try and keep it brief this time. Regardless, I hope it’s at least somewhat insightful.

Most everyone knows the plot already, so I won’t waste time here. Written and directed by James Cameron, Avatar focuses on the special mission of ex-marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who is sent to the moon of Pandora, a dangerous and exciting planet, by the US and by Colonel Miles Quaitrich (Stephen Lang) to figure out how Earth can obtain a special kind of mineral named “unobtainium” (ugh). In order to do this, he must participate in a project coordinated by scientist Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) that involves making a clone of himself in the form of the species of the native cat-like aliens on this planet, the Na’vi. This way, he can connect with the natives, and figure out how to get the mineral from their planet in a way that makes the people who want it look good. After meeting the native princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) however, things get a little complicated, as Sully starts to struggle with going back home to his old life, or staying as a Na’vi and protecting the natives from the people looking to take advantage of the plentiful planet and its resources.

Here in this shot, Colonel Quaitrich briefs Sully about Pandora, unobtainium, and of course, those damned Na'vi that mauled half his face off.

I know this sounds like just about every other critic, but the visual effects are very much astounding. It seems that Cameron has the whole uncanny valley problem under lock and key, with very few scenes where anything looks awkward or out of place. I was a huge fan of all the bioluminescent fauna, and of course the Na’vi themselves. If this is done right in even more films, the way the CGI is done here will definitely go on to influence how it’s done in the future.

It comes so close to looking natural, it's insane. I can't even tell is this shot is CG, or Saldana in makeup.

Unfortunately, the movie seems to share the same problems with character development and story that all of Cameron’s other movies have. Yet again, the actors do as well as they can with the roles they are given, no matter how poorly they are written. Worthington and Saldana undoubtedly had the best performances, although Lang and Weaver’s roles were done well enough too, despite their dialogue seeming a bit, for lack of a better word, cartoonish. That seems strong, but really that’s the best word I can come up with to describe they way most of the other characters sound. It’s not even that their performances are done bad, it’s just that most of them are such stereotypes that it kind of drags their performances down. I would have liked to see more of the major players fleshed out, especially Michelle Rodriguez’s character. I was particularly confused about her motivations in all this.

That aside, I feel as if the hype leading up to this movie got a lot of people’s hopes up, myself included, and now most of us were left wanting something bigger. I guess that’s our fault, but still, while Avatar was visually breathtaking and entertaining, it could have been so much better. Nevertheless, it is very much a standard “Hero’s Journey” archetype done really, really well.

Well, that’s all folks! I got a couple of blu-ray reviews coming up sometime in the next month or so, but until then, Happy 2010!

All images taken straight from IGN Movies. You can see more stills by clicking that link there.

Merry Christmas!

This clip is owned by the Walt Disney Company. Probably one of my most favorite adaptations of the story ever.

I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm taking a small break for now. Expect an Avatar review after Christmas, and maybe some Blu/Ray or DVD reviews in the new year.

In the meantime, for those who celebrate, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The evening star, is shining bright...

A couple of concept art images, courtesy of Filmofilia.

All right, I got a little sidetracked with everything going on, but here it is, my review of Disney's Princess and the Frog.

As silly as I felt, being a 20 something going to the theater to see a Disney movie, I have to say that I really enjoyed watching it. While the movie is not quite perfect, it definitely succeeded in taking me back to the days where I looked forward to The Lion King and Aladdin.

Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, who have worked on many other Disney movies before, the story is basically a fairy tale about a young girl named Tiana (Akina Noni Rose) living in 1920s New Orleans, who is working hard, maybe a bit too hard, to achieve her dreams of owning her own restaurant. While her mother (Oprah Winfrey) and her friends, especially spoiled but friendly southern belle Charlotte (Jennifer Cody), are proud of her, they feel that she is missing out on her youth for the most part.

At the same tame, a playboy prince from the country of "Maldonia" named Naveen (Bruno Campos) has been cut off by his parents due to his overly lavish lifestyle, and is in search for a rich young girl to be his ticket to the easy way out. Unfortunately, a run in with a crazed voodoo man known as Dr. Facilier (Keith David) has him transformed into a frog. When Prince Naveen finds Tiana in a princess-like dress at a masquerade party, he assumes the curse inflcted on him can be lifted by following the fairy tale hinted at in the title.

Unfortunately for him and Tiana, it doesn't quite go as expected, and what follows is a long trip through the magical bayou, along with a firefly named Ray (Jim Cummings) and a jazz-loving alligator named Louis (Michael Leon-Wooley), to meet voodoo maven Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis), who may be able to help them with their predicament.

I'm gonna dive right in to the 2D animation, because I know that's what everyone wants to know about. The stills that I saw on the internet looked great enough, but they looked even better in motion than I initially expected. Some of the characters looked a little out of proportion in the earlier designs, but it's hard to notice in the movie, because one can't help but marvel at the backgrounds and incredible attention to detail. It's clear that this movie was Disney's way of saying that 2D definitely isn't dead, even if it is not as common in animated movies as it was a decade and a half ago.

The story and themes were very strong throughout the movie, and I thought they were quite refreshing for a story like this. One thing I had to work a little to get around was the ending, when despite all of Tiana's hard work it was ultimately her new husband and her friends that get the restaurant she was dreaming of. The more I thought about it, though, the more I came to realize how true to life it was. Hard work can get you pretty far, but connections, and a little help from your friends don't hurt either. It was cool, however, to see a Disney princess carry such good values. Personally I think Tiana is right up there with Mulan and Belle as one of the more memorable princesses in the Disney line.

Speaking of the characters in the movie, most of them were very interesting, supported by great performances all around and some even better songs that I wish were a bit longer. I can tell that some things, such as Facilier's development and Naveen and Tiana's romance, were a little rushed, priobably to allow for a shorter runtime. Nevertheless, they were still pretty good, especially any moment involving Tiana, Charlotte or Dr Facilier. Noni Rose has a beautiful singing voice and can use it well, and David's shady voice makes his supernatural con man sound even more intimidating.

To give you a final idea of how good this movie is, I'm going to try and compare it to other Disney movies of its caliber. I would say it's on par with Aladdin and the Little Mermaid, better than Hercules, but not as good as the Lion King or the Emperor's New Groove. That's a pretty good place to be.