by Josh Crawley

This won’t be as much of an in-depth review as it’s some of my general thoughts on the movie. Not too much in the way of spoilers, I hope, but that’s the kind of thing you’re going to have to live with.

Whiplash… because there weren’t enough characters in the Marvel Universe to choose from without creating a new version of one with the unique traits of another one? Anyways, he’s pigeon-toed. Unless that isn’t PC, in which case, he’s whatever that’s called these days. Other than a subtle nod to why he may get along so well with birds, it’s not just distracting, it’s annoying. Also, concerning the bird: he’s supposed to have an attachment to one bird, yet after they don’t bring him the original bird — other than a quick remark from him — the other bird is just fine as a replacement for the rest of the movie.

War Machine … Rhodey is an idiot “Gee, Justin Hammer covered up bad stuff his crappy tech did in human trials, so I’m going to trust him to not mess with just the hardware of a Stark Industries Mark II, but the software, too.” Bright idea. I’d have liked a better (as in any) explanation for how the Mark II was powered since Rhodey doesn’t have his own personal hole-in-the-chest-glowy-thing. In my head I justify it by assuming when Tony gave Rhodey clearance for his lab he also retrofitted some of the armors just in case. This was about the same time he gave him piloting lessons for something as personal as a suit of form-fitting futury battle armor.

Black Widow … has the ability to curl her hair while changing into her S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform! I wasn’t sure about it until I talked to someone else who pointed it out first, but then I knew I wasn’t imagining things. I hope. Also, there’s a scene where Natasha is leaving Pepper’s office and she’s tromping out like a horse. Some have said this is her getting into an undercover role as a spy. Sorry, not going to cut it. She had no issue using her martial arts skills in the ring against Happy, nor did she even bother to wear a wig or contacts. And if you say she could have but we weren’t shown, it wasn’t even implied! Back to her walk. She should be as graceful as a classically-trained ballet dancer. I also heard someone say (I think it was read online) that her fighting style was based off of the Mexican lucha libre style but because she doesn’t look like a luchador the moves look completely different. Sorry, no. If you know the moves, she looks just like a well-trained performer doing the wrestling moves. Also, is she Russian? Because that “Natasha Rushman” alias was dumb. And her character in the comics always seems to be the kind of person that would go after other Russians that were giving her homeland a bad name.

Pepper Potts … pretty hot. As much as I don’t want this series of movies to turn into a one-trick-pony regurgitation of Armor Wars, I’d like to see Pepper get her own Rescue armor at some point (though it needs a better name; no offense, Matt Fraction).

Iron Man … it’s his movie. I’d actually hoped for more Black Widow and War Machine (I really wanted to call this movie either Black Widow 0 or War Machine 0, if not both), but I’m not going to complain. Conveniently, this movie just whet my appetite to read some comics! After I left the theater I ended up reading pretty much all of Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man (conveniently, much of it is in an affordable Omnibus-format hardcover, linked at the beginning of this paragraph). It’s a bit of a slow burn, but considering the title is now up to issue #26; it’s had the same creative team; and Fraction doesn’t seem ready to leave anytime soon, it’s not a fault.

Iron Man 3…? As I said earlier, I don’t want this movie series to turn into Armor Wars. For me to take it seriously, there’s going to have to be a non-armored villain. Hmm… how about The Mandarin?! Some may say he can’t be done well in modern times. You’re wrong. It isn’t that hard not to make him a stereotyped cliche. He’s already tough because he uses magic (space?) rings, which is something movie Tony shouldn’t have too much experience with (at all, really), and it just brings another obstacle for him to heroically overcome, no matter the odds.

And as much as I’d tried to stay away from spoilers as to what the post-credits sequence was regarding, a customer unwittingly gave it away. That being said, it was still a nice teaser.

Despite all that, I’m currently giving it a B+.

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Josh Crawley is the tenured Master of Disaster of Westfield Comics, not to be confused with Josh Crawley, the keyboardist for Everclear.

http://www.twitter.com/joshcrawley
josh@westfieldcomics.com
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