I will preface this by saying that I actually thoroughly enjoyed this movie for what it was. Having said that, for the light-hearted romp that it was, there were several inconsistencies in it and for that I wanted to give an unpolished review/synopsis of the movie to go along with it. I will also say that prior to writing this, I’ve had a few drinks, and its late so I leave you with this warning: I will not edit this for grammar or spelling. I will be crass, and I will be slightly drunk, and frankly you might find this slightly long winded. I will also go ahead and say if you haven’t seen this movie yet, this whole thing will be a giant SPOILER. So it goes without saying (or does it?) SPOILER ALERT. If you plan to see this movie, don’t read this. If you are not going to see it, or already have seen it, go ahead. I did give you a fair warning.
Ok so the movie starts out with this gritty dark room where this old Russian guy is dying and it turns out to be Mickey Rourke’s character’s dad. They’re watching iron man be revealed on tv as Tony stark. The old dude dies, and Mickey Rourke screams and then proceeds to pour vodka on his face and cries for like 10 seconds and start building an iron man solenoid from blueprints. (apparently the old guy worked with Tony starks dad)
Cue the ac/dc. Iron man jumps out of a plane and does awesome loops and shit. Takes off his uniform, and cue Tony stark being Tony stark. What would iron man be if it was played by someone that wasn’t Robert Downey Jr.? This franchise would die. Like what if it was Jude law? Fuck that guy. Anyways, it’s some expo similar to when Steve jobs unveils the ipad but not as annoying and way cooler. There’s a video of Tony’s dad who is Roger Sterling from Mad Men (amazing!) blah blah blah, talking about peace and legacy, cameo from Olivia Munn being a reporter, and Stan Lee being Larry King. Tony gets subpoenaed by a random hottie and drives to Washington to go to court.
Next is a court scene where Gary Schandling is a senator and RDJ is being smarmy and a wiseass as usual. This is also where they introduce the Hotel Rwanda dude that replaced the other black dude who was either deadpan or whining in the whole first movie. They want Tony to hand over the iron man suit because its dangerous but Tony really knows they want to weaponize it for their own use. He hacks into their tvs with his sweet tech, and shows them videos that show other countries including North Korea and Iran (Iran Man?) not being a threat, sucking at making iron man look alikes. Included in the mix is Justin Hammer. He owns Hammer industries and played by Sam Rockwell, he’s the business rival of Tony who frankly looks and acts exactly like Ari Gold from Entourage.
Back to the Stark house, Tony gives the company to Pepper Potts, and makes her CEO because she does all the business shit anyways. Oh yeah, I forgot, throughout the movie, Tony is secretly dying from palladium poisoning from his chest thing and it turns his veins into a computer chip looking thing. He’s trying to find alternative elements so he doesn’t die but nothing exists. In comes Scarlett Johansson (who is smoking hot in this movie by the way), she is some kind of notary who after flirting with Tony, gets hired to replace pepper as his personal assistant. Oh yeah, Iron man has a bunch of sweet computers and tech in his house that rivals the computer in Minority Report IMO. He mutes the tv like 6 times throughout this movie by audibly saying mute. I think this is weird.
Anyways. They all go to Monaco to watch some stupid gran prix race. (Cool, rich people) and Justin Hammer is there. (The guy that looks like Ari and is Tony’s business rival.) There’s also the hot blond from the first one. The reporter that Tony bangs in the first 10 minutes of Iron Man 1. Tony is being Tony again, rich saboteur, and makes a fool of hammer. All the while, Mickey finishes his iron man suit thing which turns out to be a skeleton armor and electric whips. Of all the sweet things he could have done he picks electric whips. Pretty weak if you ask me. And kinda fuckin weird. So he makes it to Monaco and sneaks onto the track. Oh yeah Tony is racing because he’s cool like that. So yeah, Mickey Rourke somehow knew that Tony would be driving the car even though he just revealed it to his pit crew 30 seconds ago. PLOT HOLE? UH YEAH. Whiplash (I think that’s the Russian guy’s villain name) starts ripping cars in half with his whip, including a Rolls Royce phantom that Pepper and Jon Favereau who plays Tony’s bodyguard again is in. They don’t die or anything. This is the debut of the iron man briefcase. Sick. As. HELL. Iron man takes care of business and the russian dude is put in jail. I forgot to mention that Mickey rourke has a toothpick in his mouth THE WHOLE GOD DAMN MOVIE. He also does a decent Russian accent.
In jail, whiplash explains to Tony that he is done because he has shown to the world that he can be beat, through some weird analogy involving God, sharks, and blood. It made little sense but whatever. The Russian guy is broken out of jail by Hammer and is hired to build him iron man suits. None of the escape is explained but I wonder if Hammer was this powerful, why didn’t he just get more shit done in the movie? He didn’t. Oh yeah, the Russian guy has a parrot. It’s never explained why, or why it’s there to begin with besides continuity with the comic books, I think.
Tony has a birthday back in California and is unsure if he should have the party because of recent events that transpired so he asks Scarlett and she tells him “he should do what he wants with whoever he wants”. But really sexy like. Her intentions are totally unclear throughout the whole movie but I didn’t care. She was so hot that it didn’t really matter. So Tony does what a normal person would do. Get drunk in the iron man suit and have a party. Cameo from the late DJ AM. Colonel Rhodes (don cheadle) shows up and is like “WTF. I stuck my neck out for you and this is what you do? Get drunk and party?” He tells Pepper potts to control this situation or he will. Iron man then pees in his suit. And then rhodie is like ”that’s the last straw” and then inexplicably runs to the basement and steals an iron man suit. Like that’s what anyone’s first reaction is to get in an iron man suit for crowd control. He then fights Tony in the suit and they end up blowing each other up in the house while dj am is spinning some beats by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock. So then iron man is knocked out and then the black guy just steals the suit and flies off with it and brings it to an army base? (I didn’t say anything racist there) And then the army is all like “sweet, let’s weaponize this stolen suit.” Uhhh ok?
Justin hammer shows up and shows off his weapons to sell to the army like he’s itchy and scratchy. They get bigger and incrementally more devastating. Rhodes throws out a cliché and is like “sweet guns dude, I’ll take them all.” He’ gonna use them to pimp out the iron man suit he stole.
Hammer goes back to check on the Russian dude building his suits. He’s not. He’s building drone robots. Hammer is pissed but does Jack all, maintaining his nonthreatening antagonist character.
Samuel L. Jackson shows up as Nick Fury and finds Iron Man in a giant donut. He says some badass shit (no matter what, I’m always reminded of Pulp Fiction when he talks, even in star wars and whatnot) and gives Tony antidotes to his transformation into a computer chip and gives him a box containing clues to finding out his dads secrets. Scarlett Johannson comes out in a skin tight leather suit and her real name is Natasha and not Natalie. OH SNAP. She’s actually some sort of martial arts spy, named the Black Widow working with S.H.I.E.L.D. Ok so Tony eventually figures out that he has to invent an element that is impossible to make. Because his dad sent him a video from the past somehow knowing that he would need to make this element someday, and somehow nick fury knew this too? He uses this giant diorama of a utopian city like the da vinci code, and it has the element secretly embeded in it. Yeah, HE HAS TO SYNTHESIZE A NEW ELEMENT. His dad helped create SHIELD or something. It’s poorly explained. So Tony builds a Particle accelerator in his garage and builds this element. Don’t question it. Just go with it. There’s also an appearance of a captain America shield. So Tony cures himself just in time, and is more powerful than ever with his new element.
Ok so back at hammer industries, Hammer gets pissed at Ivan again for building drones. He Takes his bird and his shoes. But not his tooth pick. Now, I was lead to believe that he was going to kill the bird and physically dominate him or something, but does neither of those things. He just leaves Ivan with 2 douchebag armed guards and then leaves to show off the drones anyways at Tony Spark expo. (he’s trying to become secretary of defense or something and he that thinks this is the way to do it.) At the expo, rhodie is all pimped out and is introduced as Warmachine and the leader of the drones apparently, who all look the same but represent the different branches of the military. Mickey Rourke manages to hang the two guards and calls up Tony and is all like “whats up dude, remember me? I’m still alive and still angry at your dad for screwing my dad over, and i’m gonna get you now” and starts controlling the drones and the roadie iron man suit remotely when Iron man shows up ( he flew from malibu to new york, I guess.) So he’s getting attacked by the drones and Warhammer, unwillingly. Who didn’t see that coming? So despite the fact that Ivan was some mad genius physicist, he decides that the best form of attack would be remote control robots. Theses things suck ass btw because they start blowing up almost immediately. The movie gets really explosive here and it’s awesome so I don’t really care.
Pepper is there and figures out that hammer is the bad guy behind everything and gets him arrested (duuuurrr) while this little brown tech support guy tries to hack into the drones system to stop the attack.
Meanwhile, Scarlett Johansson and jon favreau drive to hammer industries to stop Ivan. She starts kicking ass like CRAZY as soon as she gets there. She gets to a computer and she is apparently a hacker too. She manages to get the War machine suit to stop attacking Tony. But she didn’t stop the drones? Oh well. Rhoadie and Iron man start fuckin up the drones who in all honesty are weak as shit and didn’t pose a real threat to begin with but you do get to see them using their cool weapons.
Incoming. It’s a new improved whiplash, with better and bigger electric whips. Again, why whip? This all seemed very similar to when the Big lebowski was the bad guy in the first movie and made his own suit. It’s almost the exact same scenario. Anyways, he also proves to be very little of a threat and is easily defeated by warmachine and iron man. He reveals that he put a bomb in all the drones and they are rigged to blow any second. Tony saves peppers ass from being blown to bits. They make out on a roof, after more bickering. Black guy is also there for comic relief.
The next scene, Tony and Rhodes are being honoured with medals for saving new york. Cue more AC/DC and credits.
Oh yeah after the credits there’s a sneak peak at Thor so stick around if you care about that.
