Fun with Franchises: The Marvel Universe – Iron Man 2 (2010), Part V — “Earth Is Having a Bad Semester”

We continue with another entry in our Fun with Franchises series. This week’s film is Iron Man 2.

Fun with Franchises is a series born out of my friend Colin and I realizing how much fun it was for the two of us to watch the same movie separately and then share our reactions. We started by watching all of the James Bond movies, for the purposes of ranking them for the blog. I brought him in because he was much more of a Bond expert than I was at the time, and I felt his perspective would liven things up. He would be the color commentator to my play-by-play man.

We soon discovered that, by watching the movies separately and then putting everything we said together in the same place, hilarity ensued. We each brought in our own observations, not knowing what the other would say, and then reacted to what the other said. And we loved every minute of it.

We had so much fun, we figured we had to do it again. So we graduated from a single franchise, to all franchises. If you’re gonna have fun with franchises, it wouldn’t be right if you didn’t franchise it. Season 1 included the Harry Potter movies, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Twilight (which neither of us had seen before we watched them for the articles) and Pirates of the Caribbean. All of those articles can be read on the Fun with Franchises page.

Also, just so we’re clear, this is all for parody. We’re just messing with them because we love them. (Well… Twilight…) We’re watching movies we enjoy and are simply having some fun with them.

Right now, we’re doing the Marvel Universe, and today is the fifth and final part of Iron Man 2.

We begin Part V in the middle of the action. As Marvel Part Vs tend to do.

Good thing both these places are in Queens.

And RIGHT NEXT TO ONE ANOTHER.

“When we arrive, I need you to watch the perimeter.”

You mean, in case fleeing people show up?

“I’m gonna enter the facility and take down the target.”

Go on…

Exactly. How can you not?

Colin:

She is hot, though.

“Watch the road.”

“I got it.”

Colin:

He’s making the face you make when you’re bullseye-ing womprats in your T-16 back home.

Why are you on the highway?

Meanwhile, he’s underneath them.

This was the point in the movie, I remember, in theaters, where I went, “All right, I think we’re done here.”

Colin:

But once again, compare this to the end of Incredible Hulk. At least it’s more dazzling and has Downey involved.

Colin:

Car alarms suck.

I thought 303 was already offline. Why is it offline again? Someone’s not paying attention to which ones are down.

Colin:

There hasn’t been a whole lot of him in the suit so far, huh? I mean, I guess there have been three notable instances in the suit before this, but only two of those featured any fighting. I’m almost impressed at their restraint. They could have had this whole movie be him fighting things in the suit.

At this point, at least half the attraction is Downey himself. It’s like Batman. You have to show the actor’s face outside the suit, otherwise you have to manufacture moments of him taking the mask/helmet off, which ain’t happening. It’s not restraint, they just haven’t found a way to have their cake and eat it too yet.

Also, who cares about any of this? Iron Man versus drones? Where’s Mickey Rourke?

Oh boy, Iron Man versus War Machine. But not really, because War Machine’s like, “I don’t want to be doing this” and we know it’s not actually him. And we saw them fight already.

No regard for people’s lives or public property.

These cars seem arbitrarily put here.

Colin:

This is visually impressive. A lot more interesting than fucking Thor. Which is up next, isn’t it? Aw, man.

I think you’re gonna be surprised. Not necessarily effects-wise, but in terms of pure direction. Branagh cants the shit out of Thor, and that made it more interesting to me than most of the other Marvel bullshit, at least shots-wise. Story-wise, and all that… no contest.

Colin:

Yeah, I think that’s what I was thinking of. There’s also the matter of CGI, which is a lot of that movie. You can shoot things with interesting angles, but if it’s all made in a computer, that kinda ruins it. This is a lot of CGI and it’s not shot that well (but again, could have been Hulk levels of bad) but it still doesn’t always feel AS fake as Thor did. All of the shots of Asgard, I’m just checked out.

Marvel doesn’t have good CGI in general. Even with Guardians. Guardians has really shitty looking CGI. The makup is nice and all, but when you look at that final sequence, it looks awful.

That was either really fast or really slow, depending on where you think this place is.

“Stay in the car.”

“I’m not staying in the car.”

“What are you wearing?”

Is she hacking this thing or did Dan give her the code?

“Look, I’m not letting you go in there alone.”

“You wanna help? Keep the car running.”

I thought you were a hacker, Mickey.

Favs with the punch!

I love Favreau. He’s the best. I have a lot of problems with this movie, but I don’t blame him for a lot of them.

I love shots like this. Because all I can see is how it looks without CG.

Colin:

There are rich white women who pay to have this done. You can actually replace “this” with almost anything, and that’s still true.

Colin:

She did zap his dumb ass.

He used to be a boxer, too. I don’t know if they ever mention that in the movies.

Doesn’t that suck? Coming from a shit and having to deal with stuff? Ugh. The worst.

I’d have immediately moved out of the way and been like, “Damn, lady! Go ahead!”

Colin:

They would have received applause if the last guy waved her through, saying, “No, you good. No, you good. Ey, call me, though?”

Colin:

She does lots of poses, as though she’s watching herself do this. I’ve never met anyone [from a Western country] who was into martial arts and not weird about it. It’s always a weird-looking white person who’s sort of anti-social and too caught up in the novelty of it all. Martial arts art like the Dungeons and Dragons of physical activity.

The best thing about real fighting and stunts are the faces you get.

See?

Though, you’ll notice I have absolutely nothing to say about any of this.

Meanwhile…

They’re doing interesting things with the camera angles and the CG. It gives it a bit of a grittier feel and less sterile than usual. So aside from the excess, and the bad plotting outside of the general Tony storyline (though the execution of that isn’t great), it’s not a terrible movie. But it’s still one of their bottom five movies they’ve made. And one of those five people barely remember as counting.

Why were they not deployed earlier?

Colin:

People always hack with the keyboard alone. Which, no. You need to click stuff.

Hammer doesn’t have Weird Scientist Amazon Prime.

And, from the other end – why were they not neutralized earlier?

Nice glasses, Moe Green.

Colin:

This is overly retarded, even for him.

Anything for more ass shots.

FLASH BANG!

Love me a good flash bang.

Sweep the leg!

Crane kick!

Faces galore.

These are about all I have right now.

She can fight, is the point of this. And for people to feel like it was badass and clap.

Is that pepper spray?

(Oh, man, imagine the missed pun opportunities with that one…)

Well that accomplished very little.

Colin:

She’s kinda over the top. I like her as an addition to this franchise. I’ve decided. But she maces the last guy, which is too bad.

Where were you this whole time?

Unnecessary.

Colin:

You bit the man’s ear! What the fuck? As far as he knows, you’re an illegal intruder into a weapons facility trying to hijack some hardware and do evil with it. The poor guy’s doing his job and you have to pull a Mike Tyson.

“I got him!”

Colin:

SHE HUNG A MAN.

Colin:

Didn’t know he liked to get wet.

Rhodey’s still locked on.

He makes some reference that isn’t drop your socks and grab your cocks, so I don’t care.

Video game shit.

Colin:

See, this part is cool to me. He’s got the track set up on his HUD and he can fly through it. At least this entertains me. Hulk…doesn’t have anything like this.

Colin:

Fuck you, Universal!

Universal released The Incredible Hulk.

Colin:

Then double fuck them.

I like the image of the earth blowing up, though. Not necessarily the shot, but the image.

“He’s gone.”

NO SHIT.

Colin:

He hung two men. It’d have been great if there had been a shot of him frustrated at the computer for a second and they cut to the two guys hanging there, dead. Cause reaction shots are the key to comedy.

I’m confused as to how that went? How big is this facility? At what point did he leave? Where? Maybe bring more people if you’re gonna storm the facility. How did they even know where to go to find him? Did Hammer draw them a map?

Anyway, more Bullshitium:

“What’s your twenty?”

Colin:

Thanks for the warning, Don.

Colin:

So we land in a Japanese garden biosphere thing.

As you do.

Hacker typing. Colin loves that.

She’s rebooting Rhodey’s suit.

You call him Rhodey too?

Colin:

Black men always have nicknames. It’s just a movie thing.

Maybe put a passcode on there or something.

Iron Man, stop stroking War Machine’s dick!

Colin:

This is probably turning on a lot of nerds, and that makes me unhappy.

Oh… good… I guess.

So now the bullshit is over and we can have a boss fight, right?

“You got your best friend back.”

Colin:

I got my helmet best friend back!

“Thank you very much, Agent Romanov.”

So you can just patch a feed through like that?

Apparently whatever he did cured him. Well that’s one bullshit plot point overcome. All it took was discovering a new element. Glad we can maintain that Neo-Realist level of believability in our stories.

“Yes, for the moment, I’m not dying. Thank you.”

Colin:

She likes your chest. And you’re not dying. And Pepper’s listening. And she apparently put it together that you were dying.

“What do you mean you’re not dying? Did you say you’re dying?”

How did you get on this call?

Did you really call him and not tell him you had someone else on the call? That’s rude as shit.

Colin:

I often assume certain people are doing that. And it’s paid off.

“No, I’m not. Not anymore.”

“What’s going on?”

“I was going to tell you. I didn’t want to alarm you.”

You wouldn’t listen to him anyway.

“You weren’t gonna tell me you really were dying?!”

“You didn’t let me.”

Colin:

I have this with my girlfriend too. “Why didn’t you tell me that?!” “…you wouldn’t let me say shit cause you were too busy bitching about that Uber driver.” Which is fair. I hate Uber.

“Why didn’t you tell me that?!”

“I was gonna make you an omelet and tell you!”

Don’t bring up that moment. That one’s on you, then. Make it that time when she was a bitch and shot you down from saying anything.

“Save it for the honeymoon. You got incoming, Tony.”

The honeymoon? Ugh.

“Pepper –”

“Are you okay?”

He was just DYING!

“I am fine. Don’t be mad. I will formally apologize –”

Never, I hope.

“I am mad.”

“- When I’m not fending off a Hammer-oid attack.”

Colin:

Hammeroids. That was fast and wasn’t really overplayed.

“Fine.”

“We could have been in Venice.”

“Oh, please.”

You don’t tap on a man’s forehead.

“They’re coming. Come on, let’s go.”

Please say you never saw Venice.

“Oh man, you can have your suit back.”

Colin:

I’ve never seen Venice. Kinda don’t want to, now that I’ve seen Don’t Look Now.

Weird that people from Venice aren’t named Venison.

That’s my contribution.

Thanks, Tony.

Apology moment.

Of course. Apologize now. Remember when they were coming like, a second ago?

Also, how did you outfit a new suit with a triangle shape on the chest so quickly?

Colin:

Aw, they’re having a moment. Save the making out for later. They should have their guns pointed up right now. For that matter, has Cheadle used any of the other guns besides the minigun?

“They’re coming in hot. What’s the play?”

“Well, we wanna take the high ground, so let’s put the biggest gun up on that ridge.”

“Where you going?”

“What are you taking about? You have a big gun, you are not the big gun.”

“Tony, don’t be jealous.”

“No, it’s subtle, all the bells and whistles.”

“It’s called being a badass.”

This is terrible.

“All right, you go up top, I’ll draw ‘em in.”

“Well don’t stay down here, this is the worst place to be.”

“Well, you got a spot –”

“It’s the kill box, Tony. This is where you go to die.”

Colin:

They’re just standing around, and now we hear it’s the “kill box,” which means it’s not at all the kill box.

Isn’t that terrible? How Marvel says, “It’s definitely not this,” which means it definitely is this? Because they do it in every movie. Even their entertaining movies now follow the same formula. The only one that didn’t was Iron Man because it got to do whatever it wanted.

Isn’t she able to reset all of those as well? I don’t understand. Why did you just reset War Machine?

Colin:

Aren’t these drones supposed to shoot on sight? They shouldn’t be waiting around being menacing. Franchises often give things personality when they shouldn’t have any.

Or take away logic because who cares, action.

Also, does Mickey Rourke have to walk or drive to get here? How’s that working? Or can he fly all of a sudden? Just figured I’d ask now and get it out of the way.

Colin:

I always thought he just Rourke’d to wherever he needed to be.

Colin:

I like waterfalls.

That was the trailer money shot. I remember that one.

Hey how about you take care of those, Agent Romanov?

Oh, right, this was the money shot.

Colin:

These drones SUCK. There weren’t even this many of them, and they’re all be demolished like butter. They might as well be Trade Federation battle droids.

I like the red, though.

Colin:

But colors, though.

That was a nice move.

Colin:

I want an auto-targeting gun dick on my back.

Why do all of this franchise’s action scenes take place at night?

I guess because you’d realize how shitty the CGI is if they took place during the day.

You guys realize that every single Marvel movie has a fight scene that takes place at night, right?

Final battle in Iron Man, the opening Hulk sequence, this, at least two sequences in Thor, Captain America has the escape sequence at night, Avengers has the Thor/Iron Man/Captain America battle, Iron Man 3 has that diner sequence, Thor 2 has something, but it’s terrible, so who cares (that Elf planet fight, right?), Captain America 2 has the ship sequence, and Guardians is in space, so there’s not really a night to be had. But technically the scene where Drax calls Ronan to come get them.

Remember when we did this last movie?

Colin:

I’d hate to disintegrate.

Remember when we did this last movie?

Yeah, sure, you can control both.

I’m more interested in the red than anything else.

Mickey Rourke is sure taking his sweet time in getting over here.

How much money is Hammer losing right now? There are like 30 drones. That’s a couple of billion dollars

“Get down!”

Colin:

Better than a Hulk Smash, I’d say.

Fuck trees, apparently.

Colin:

I mean, that’s cool. I don’t have much to say other than, yeah, lasers end things pretty quickly.

Also, that’s a thing he has that he never uses again after this.

Colin:

False. He uses it repeatedly in Avengers. Trying to cut into the giant flying snake thing. By that time, he’s figured out how to make it not a one-off, too. It just runs down his power. So they did the usual principle of taking one of his abilities and upgrading it slightly. Which is nice.

Nice way to efficiently end things before the boss fight.

And because we’re dealing with by the numbers action, I’ll give it about 90 seconds before Rhodey gets disabled and Tony has to do it all by himself.

“I think you should lead with that next time.”

“Yeah, sorry boss, I can only use it once.”

Nice way to answer that potential question in the future.

“It’s a one-off.”

And now you’re killing it and basically saying, “This is our out from ever using it again.”

It’s shit like this that makes me hate Marvel.

Colin:

Hey, now, not fair. It was a one-off this time, but he does use it again. Not that we don’t hate Marvel.

It’s just the idea of, “Hey, you know how we have this thing that ends fights immediately? Yeah, well, that would cut like thirty minutes off of our movie, so… we won’t be using that much.” Fuck you. That’s like fighting a dragon Pokemon and going, “You know, I have this ice type that can kill the fuck out of it… but that’s too easy, so let’s just throw out Charizard.”

What, so she told them who to arrest and they just did it?

Colin:

Hey, you come across Gwyneth Paltrow as a CEO, and there are larger questions to be asked.

“I see what you’re doing. Trying to pin this on me, huh? That’s good. You’re starting to think like a CEO. Taking out the competition. I like that.”

Colin:

Starting to think like a CEO. Stop being so happy-go-lucky optimistic. It’s dumb.

What exactly is he being arrested for? Do they know about Vanko? Or is this just on suspicion, for the plot, and we’ll figure out why later?

Haven’t they read him his rights? Is any of this legit? He’s making threats while being arrested.

“When they get here, I think you should station them at the—”

WHOA WHOA WHOA. You’re telling the fucking police what to do?

And the NYPD at that?! Are you fucking nuts?

“Excuse me, miss – no disrespect, but I don’t tell you how to run your business, you don’t tell me how to do my job.”

That’s exactly what a New York cop will tell you. Every time.

Colin:

Yeah, cause the NYPD takes orders from random CEOs.

What, this is supposed to be her figuring out how to get shit done?

FUCK YOU.

“You coming with us?”

“No, I’m gonna stay til the park is clear.”

WHAT?!! What the fuck is going on right now?!!!!!!

You TELL her she’s coming with you. Because THIS AREA IS DANGEROUS. That means everyone out.

Colin:

Something’s up ahead. Look’s different! Starfox.

So you just have no access over the drones at all? Just gonna sit there and watch this happen?

Colin:

We have about 10 minutes left. I’m gonna go with….boss fight.

Aw shit, it’s a Transformer!

Colin:

It has happy anime eyes.

“Good to be back.”

Where did you go?

Have you worn one of those suits before?

Have you been in Queens before?

“Oh, this ain’t gonna be good.”

Can always count on the black guy.

Colin:

We have the same kind of thing as last time here. A person from Tony’s past, sort of, who ends up stealing the technology and building a knock-off suit.

Which should pale in comparison to the power in his suit. But whatever.

Colin:

I guess I didn’t know his name was Whiplash. Which, what if J.K. Simmons was a villain?

Have you guys seen Juno?

Aww… Hammer’s secret weapon.

You know that shit a dud.

“Hammer tech?”

“Yeah.”

The rest of it is Hammer tech too. I know it’s for the joke and all, but… seriously.

Colin:

Hammer’s a moron, so yeah. Also, that took a long time to fire.

Yeah, shoot him in the fucking face.

Colin:

He should have been doing that shooting the last time when there was no suit covering Vanko. And now the helmet is faster than these bullets.

What’s with him and the whips? Why did he double down on them when they didn’t work the first time?

Colin:

His shoulder dick got cut off!

Colin:

I don’t really like that he only seems to have one trick. Did he play with whips in prison, or something? Maybe try some other weapons or something. These look problematic.

Nice head punch.

Colin:

This is where he should have had the laser again. You never use both hands at once. 

Colin:

Why is his suit so much BETTER? It shouldn’t be at all better. He has a worse chest piece, Hammer’s servos or whatever powering it, and it’s his first try. There are two more advanced suits fighting him.

Mickey Rourke likes to turn his back on things.

So is this like Harry and Voldemort’s wands being connected? And now it’s bringing Mickey Rourke’s career back from the dead temporarily.

Colin:

Why is the helmet off?

“Rhodes. I got an idea.”

Okay, but he can probably hear you saying this idea.

They’re gonna cross the streams.

Colin:

And then the Magic Negro helps defeat the Russian.

Well maybe do something, Mickey.

Colin:

Shoot him in the fucking face. Shoot him. In the fucking face.

Why is his helmet off?

Well that was anticlimactic and shitty.

You see that A it turned into?

Yeah, it wasn’t subtle.

Well maybe shoot him in the head, since he probably has a self-destruct button.

Ain’t you ever fought an Electrode before?

Colin:

Beeping means bomb.

“You lose.”

See?

“All these drones are rigged to blow. We gotta get out of here, man!”

Explain to me how that wouldn’t have come across without this line of dialogue.

Please. I’m begging you to.

And somehow he knew the dumb bitch needed saving.

Colin:

Oh, she’s probably near some dead drones. This is the part where he flies so fast he has a posse of cars and vans and shit flying behind him and he catches her and then after he gets out of the Matrix there are sentinels holy fuck the franchises are blending

REALLY?! You don’t know what that is?!

Colin:

This is just the white woman response. She’s curious, and it couldn’t be something that hurts her, because what did she ever do to it, right?

Wait, he had his expo right outside Hammer Industries?

Because I see a giant Hammer building right over there.

Where the hell did Happy have to drive to, then?

Why did it take Mickey so long to get over here?

What is going on right now do you guys smell toast

Colin:

Wait, so the expo WAS in New York? Okay then, that solves that riddle.

Colin:

As he breaks all of her bones and she shits herself everywhere. That’s how this story ends. “Oh, maybe accelerating from 0 to 400 mph in 2 seconds while being gripped with the force of a car crusher wasn’t good for her organs.”

So is this a metaphor for him finally being over his dad issues?

Or is this just a way to collect the insurance on the Expo, which is supposed to run for another 10 or 11 months?

Colin:

Are we sure this isn’t Vegas? Doesn’t look like Flushing.

Look at that apartment building — it’s Queens.

Superhero domestic violence.

Ta da!

Colin:

His helmet! He got that in fourth grade!

She can’t take this anymore.

Her body “literally” cannot handle the stress.

Which is gonna be ironic, given what it handles in the next Iron Man movie.

Colin:

She’s overreacting.

“I never know if you’re gonna kill yourself or wreck the whole company,”

She quits.

Colin:

Oh, she gives the company back? I guess I forgot about that. Now I feel less bad about him losing his stuff.

“I get it. You don’t have to make any excuses.”

“I’m not making any excuses –”

“Actually, you were just making excuses, but you don’t have to.”

“You deserve better. You’ve taken such good care of me.”

Better than CEO?

“I’ve been in a tough spot and you got me through it.”

Did she? I feel like dad got you through it. And your intellect. And The Plot.

“Thank you for understanding.”

“Let’s talk clean up.”

Oh, so he kisses her. There goes that resignation.

Who’s gonna run the company now? Happy?

Colin:

I thought she was giving it BACK.

“Weird?”

Colin:

I’ve never asked a girl that after a kiss. On the lips, anyway.

“No, it’s not weird.”

“I think it was weird.”

I am very okay with this cockblock.

“You guys look like two seals fighting over a grape.”

Colin:

Hah. We can all agree that white people kissing are goofy.

“I just quit –”

“You don’t have to do that. I heard the whole thing.”

“You should get lost.”

“I was here first. Get a roof.”

Colin:

He was there first and didn’t say anything when they landed on the roof out of nowhere.

His car got lost in the explosion, so he’s gonna have to hang on to the suit.

“Not okay. Not okay with that.”

“Wasn’t a question.”

Colin:

If it was really not okay, JARVIS could take it over now, though.

Time to hit the… Rhodes.

Colin:

But now he’s lonesome. Just a face in the crowd.

Now he doesn’t accept the resignation.

Colin:

Establishing shot of an Audi and several piece of shit government cars.

Colin:

There’s an Asian reporter on the TV. Could it be the same reporter as the one from The Incredible Hulk?

Same clip. Apparently this is happening at the same time, and presumably this is what leads to him walking into the bar with Tross at the end of that movie.

So for those keeping score — Queens and Harlem are destroyed within about two days of one another.

And then aliens in like, I don’t know, two weeks.

Because Thor is about to happen like, this weekend.

So yeah… Earth is having a really bad semester.

Colin:

Earth Is Having a Bad Semester

And this is where we take an Iron Man story and make it worse.

“I don’t think I want you looking at that. I’m not sure it pertains to you anymore.”

Then why did you leave it on the desk?

“Now this, on the other hand, is Agent Romanov’s assessment of you.”

Weird how he didn’t immediately go with that one first, since narcissism is clearly one of the things mentioned in that report.

Colin:

She wrote a report about you. She knows lots of languages and she can fight, but does she know how to write a good report? You’d think that growing up in Russia and then learning how to fight would have been a bit of an obstacle to expository writing development.

“Mr. Stark displays compulsive behavior. In my own defense, that was last week.”

Colin:

That was last week. Shiho answer.

Reaction shots.

“Prone to self-destructive tendencies. I was dying. I mean, please. And, aren’t we all?”

Colin:

Booze counts as self-destructive? Sign me up, I guess.

Mickey Rourke was also prone to self-destructive tendencies. Choose your form.

“Textbook narcissism.”

See?

“Agreed.”

Colin:

He manned up there. Good for him.

“Recruitment assessment for Avengers Initiative: Iron Man yes.”

“I gotta think about it.”

“Read on.”

“Tony Stark not – not recommended?”

Uh huh, motherfucker.

“That doesn’t make any sense. How can you approve me but not approve me?”

Colin:

You can’t take Iron Man but not him. He doesn’t just make the tech.

That’s great. Just walk away.

“I’ve got a new ticker, I’m trying to do right by Pepper. I’m in a stable-ish relationship.”

Colin:

It’s great how he starts listing all the tropes that this movie winds up on. It’s like he’s explaining how simplistic these movies are.

How does he have a new ticker? His heart is the same, as far as I know.

“Which leads us to believe at this juncture we’d only like to use you as a consultant.”

Colin:

As someone whose official job title is “consultant,” I’m pretty sure that means they’ll have him do just about nothing.

He goes to bars and recruits others. Essentially what Captain America does for the war in the beginning.

“You can’t afford me.”

“Then again, I will wave my customary retainer in exchange for a small favor.”

“Rhodey and I are being honored in Washington, and we need a presenter.”

Colin:

A presenter. So it’s obviously Stern. Cause he’s a dick.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Payoff!

“It is my great pleasure to be here today to present these awards to Lt. Colonel James Rhodes –”

“And Mr. Tony Stark. Who is, of course, a national treasure.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel, for such a brilliantly distinguished performance.”

“You deserve this.”

Colin:

Don Cheadle’s a good sport about stuff.

“Mr. Stark. Thank you for such a brilliantly distinguished performance. You deserve this.”