Iron Man 2 (2010)

 Again, I'm working my way through the Marvel box set.  I enjoyed this one a lot more this time around.  I think I was expecting something different when I saw it in the theater and was vaguely disappointed.  Overall, it fits very well into the storyline. 

Also, I am much less opposed to Black Widow showing up here since I know what a great part she gets later. 

Mickey Rourke is still a weirdo but I was focused more on Sam Rockwell's secondary villain this time around.  He's a smarmy weasel and Rockwell plays that to the hilt.    Took the new beau to the midnight premiere of Iron Man 2 on Thursday. I don't think he was prepared for the sheer amount of comic book nerdom present in the theater. He was slightly disappointed that there were no costumes, unless you count T-shirts with a superhero's emblem as a costume.

I have bitched about the people who surround me in movie theaters before but the crowd that night were my favorite kind of people: the ones who get all the jokes, who know the backstory without Cliff's Notes and, most importantly, fall silent immediately following the previews. They are there to see the movie, dammit, not pay $21 for the privilege of chatting or texting in a large dark room. (It also gladdened my heart to hear hisses and boos of derision during the Twilight: Eclipse trailer. Truly, they are my people.)

No JJ Abrams super-secret not-Cloverfield trailer, though. Maybe the little time-lock sealed canister he supposedly sent them out in was like one of those puzzle boxes from The Da Vinci Code. (Man, Da Vinci just can not catch a break.)

On to the actual movie-- my date was disappointed in the villains of the series because he felt they were not enough of a threat to Tony Stark's empire. This is a valid point. (You see why I keep him?) Mickey Rourke is not quite the foil for Stark's intellect that the Joker is/was for Batman. Don't get me wrong, now, his Russian physicist is surprisingly decent.

Come on, it's like if Mohammad Ali started speaking Dutch all of a sudden. You'd be fucking impressed.

I guess my one complaint would be Scarlett Johansson. Not in a I-want-to-cut-her-because-she's-prettier-than-me way, but I expected so much more based on all the hype around her character. I don't know if it counts as a spoiler, but the trailers and sites I've followed seemed to imply that she would be a corollary villain; some sort of industrial spy for the Russians. Not so, my friends. She is, in fact, in the employ of one Nick Fury. I found that obscurely disappointing. It could be that they are setting her up as a double agent for a further sequel. I will cling to that hope.

It's not quite as awesome as the original but you should have expected that. Still, quite worthy on its own merits.