Movie Rec: "Iron Man 2"

I often find myself watching movies and wishing I could watch a reframe of the same story from another character's point of view, and with entirely different action. In this case, I found myself wishing I could watch "Iron Man 2" from Pepper Potts' perspective as she tackled the enormously complicated and frustrating job of being C.E.O. of Stark Industries. Imagine the challenges of this position: Tony Stark is a never-ending legal/public relations nightmare; it's entirely unclear what Stark Industries does when Tony's not involved; and she appeared to have only two allies: Scarlett Johanssen (ScarJo), masquerading as a secretary disguised as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and the trusty limo driver whose name I never caught but stayed at her side, loyal and brave. The movie "How I Ran Stark Industries for Whatever Time Period this Movie Represented, Starring Pepper Potts" wouldn't be a smash hit, but I would watch it with great interest and sympathy for Pepper, who didn't have a lot to do in the main narrative, except bicker adorably with Tony and build up the UST something fierce.

Without getting my above-mentioned wish, I should say that "Iron Man 2" is entirely adequate as a movie: it's fun, it's loud, there's a lot of property damage and violence that kept my inner 10-year-old-boy happy, and there are a ton of nerdy references, starting with Stan Lee's cameo (blink and you'll miss it) and ending after the final credits have rolled. I expected to dislike Tony a lot more, but he was surrounded by characters who kept calling him on his B.S., which was refreshing, especially given that there was a lot of B.S. that Tony needed to take ownership of. But he's still an essentially likable character, especially when I think that I don't have to interact with him personally.

The side characters and villains pick up a lot of the slack in the storyline, and all of them do admirably well. I liked Don Cheadle very much as Rhodes. He's the down-to-earth best friend that Tony needs (and possibly doesn't deserve.) ScarJo was quite lovely, but when the fight scene finally came around, I kept wishing she'd put her hair in a ponytail, or keep it out of her face somehow, because in the little martial arts practice I've had, I know that the last thing I'd want is my pretty, curly hair flipping into my line of sight and ruining my moves. Sam Rockwell is a great, if a little useless, villain and as always, seeing him do a dance of revenge is fun, fun, fun. Mickey Rourke exudes menace as the vengeance-driven Whiplash, a character who's a lot more dangerous than he initially appears (or that his name would imply). Sam Jackson is fabulous, minimally, and makes me long for the rumored "Avengers" movie so that we'll get a larger dose of his awesomeness.

So, yeah, it's popcorn fun. It's what summer movies are all about for me: nothing serious, just a lot of cars destroyed, uncomplicated morals introduced ("with great power..."), and witty banter here and there. (Rockwell's monologue about his weapons is the funniest bit of writing in the entire movie.) Yay testosterone!

In trailers: The testosterone parade continues with "Grown-Ups", "The A-Team", "Avatar: The Last Airbender", and, weirdly enough, "Twilight: Eclipse" which was packaged as "Werewolf v. Vampire SMACKDOWN (with just a smidge of pouty romance and the ugliest damn engagement ring I've ever seen)". The best trailer prize went to "Inception", the new Christopher Nolan thriller with Dicaprio, Ellen Page, and Ken Watanabe (Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer). "Inception" appears to be about dream espionage, or dream sorcery, or industrial sabotage, or some combination of those three, and it looks as though combined with Satoshi Kon's "Paprika", we will have the best dream-themed double feature in the history of ever.