Salon.com > Iron Man 2

I am “Iron Man” with a pacemaker

Sat, 22 May 2010 00:20:00 +0000

After a close brush with death, it is not uncommon to make a list of the things you have yet to achieve, after which it is not uncommon to escape to the movies. It was in this context that I discovered I was not living up to my man-machine potential.

But sitting in a movie theater last weekend, it became clear what had drawn me (and a reluctant friend) to see "Iron Man 2." Iron Man's powers are generated from an implant designed to keep his weakened heart from failing. Of course, there are differences in our individual circumstances. Tony Stark, the man beneath the Iron Man armor, designed his own implant in an effort to save himself from a piece of shrapnel traveling to his heart. Not only that, he created the device using material provided by his unwitting captors (Asian Reds in the original "Tales of Suspense" comic; Middle Eastern terrorists in the movie). I am not nearly that clever; my device was built by Medtronic, a Minneapolis company that was started in a garage and is now the largest medical device company in the world. We have so much in common, and yet I have so many things to learn from him. Sure he's a little smoother in social situations, and better connected, yet at our core we share something rare. We are both cyborgs.

“Iron Man 2″ blasts past original with $133.6M

Mon, 10 May 2010 12:14:00 +0000

Tony Stark piloted to the top of the box office but not the record books.

"Iron Man 2," the sequel starring Robert Downey Jr. as Marvel's gadget-happy billionaire superhero, earned $133.6 million domestically on its opening weekend, according to distributor Paramount Pictures' estimates Sunday. The opening rocketed past the original $98.6 million debut in 2008 and landed the record as the fifth-biggest opening weekend.

"We're thrilled with the combination of the way it's playing across the board," said Don Harris, Paramount's vice president of distribution. "It's playing as a fanboy movie, but it's also playing as family movie, too. I even know a bunch of people who are planning to take their mothers to see 'Iron Man 2' on Mother's Day, which really made me chuckle."

"Iron Man 2" has taken in $194 million overseas since it debuted in many international markets last week, bringing its worldwide total to over $327 million. While Hollywood blockbusters typically open around the same date in most countries, some get an overseas jump of a week or more on their U.S. debuts. The biggest opening came from China with $7.3 million.

“Iron Man 2″: Parody or party?

Fri, 07 May 2010 11:10:00 +0000

During the first few minutes of "Iron Man 2," it's pretty hard to tell the difference between this movie and Mike Judge's "Idiocracy," or for that matter from a host of earlier nightmarish parables about America's future that preceded it. (Schwarzenegger's late-'80s vehicle "The Running Man," anyone? Anyone?) In a delirious opening scene, arms dealer turned human weapon Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) descends to the stage of some arena-rock spectacle, wearing his impenetrable iron-dong costume, and emerges from it perfectly coiffed, without a drop of sweat, clad in a designer suit that is to Armani couture as Peruvian cocaine is to sidewalk chalk. The crowd roars. Some dude yells, "Blow something up!"

Superheroes suck!

Thu, 06 May 2010 11:01:00 +0000

As Whiplash, the hateful Slavic super-genius who challenges armor-plated industrialist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in "Iron Man 2," Mickey Rourke has a Boris Badenov accent, greasy hair, a pencil mustache and a predatory stare that would give Mike Tyson pause. The man doesn't look at people, he looks through them. It's the stare of a stone thug -- a gangsta badass who came up from nothing and would be content to make do with nothing for the rest of his life, as long as he had the freedom to roam and the ability to create. Whiplash is surrounded by technology, by money, by the most spectacular comic book vistas that Hollywood can buy, and he can barely muster the energy to sneer.

Whiplash has the right idea.

The comic book film has become a gravy train to nowhere. The genre cranks up directors' box office averages and keeps offbeat actors fully employed for years at a stretch by dutifully replicating (with precious few exceptions) the least interesting, least exciting elements of its source material; spicing up otherwise rote superhero vs. supervillain storylines with "complications" and "revisions" (scare quotes intentional) that the filmmakers, for reasons of fiduciary duty, cannot properly investigate; and delivering amusing characterizations, dense stories or stunning visuals while typically failing to combine those aspects into a satisfying whole.