Iron Man 2 (2010) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written January 1st, 2016*

Well, it certainly isn't as good as the first Iron Man, or most of the other Marvel films for that matter. I remember this sucking, but I actually liked it more than I remember. Don't get me wrong, it's quite messy and arguably bland, but at the same time pretty entertaining.

This time around, Tony Stark must deal with his failing health and a crazy Russian guy who wants to kill him while the government want their hands on his Iron Man technology. 

It deals with Tony's alcoholism laughably and there is some awful drunk acting here, not that Robert Downey Jr's performance was bad (He was once again excellent), it just portrayed alcoholism in just a terrible and unrealistic way and led to some of the worst moments of the film like the dance fight. That said, I did love the arc of Tony dealing with the fact he might die due to his arc reactor poisoning him, it was nice to see Stark genuinely scared for once.

Mickey Rourke pops up as the villain this time around as a Russian who wants revenge on Tony for what his father did to his father years ago. I don't know how much to criticise a hammy comic-book accent, because Rourke's Russian accent was laughably terrible and so many of his lines were incomprehensible. He did get some solid action scenes, the race track fight is really awesome and I loved the design of his character with the electric whips that look like a weapon from the Ratchet and Clank games. I was severely disappointed at how the ending turned out, it was far too similar to the first, the bad guy gets his own Iron Man suit and must fight him......

Sam Rockwell is also a side villain here, who is funny and I love Rockwell, but he didn't make for a convincing or compelling villain for one second. Brody (Recast by Don Cheadle) is also given a much more significant role this time too, getting to don (eh?) the War Machine armour and actually help in the final set-piece.

We get to meet Natasha Romonoff/Black Widow for the first time and she wasn't given much to do bar an awesome action scene towards the end. She just didn't seem like the same Black Widow from the later Marvel films at all. Odd. 

There was quite a bit of world building here. I think that's what a lot of people took issue with when this first came out, it spent too much time hinting at something greater. Samuel L Jackson was excellent here as Nick Fury in his first proper role outside a post-credits cameo, he seemed much more Samuel L Jackson than I remember him being in the later films. He is essentially here to try and recruit Tony into the Avengers Initiative despite his out of control behaviour and recklessness. We also got a post-credits stinger of Thor's hammer leading into the next film Marvel has to offer. 

I will mention I did find it a lot funnier than the first, the court scene at the beginning was well written and hilarious, easily the best moment of the film, it's just a shame they couldn't keep up to the quality of that scene. 


It has its moments and is a breezy, entertaining watch and contains lots of elements that made the first film so great, but Iron Man 2 is a huge step down from the last film in the series and is one of Marvel's weakest films to date.

6/10 Dans

Iron Man 2 is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - Film Review

*Originally written May 3rd, 2018*

Review:

Avengers: Infinity War had a lot to live up to. It's the culmination of an insane 18 films of hit-or-miss quality and 10 years of build up. I had my worries about Infinity War. Packing all these characters into such a huge film. Would it work? I wasn't sure. While it is far from perfect, this is a fun, effective, ambitious and surprisingly emotional epic that spells the beginning of the end for a decade worth of superhero films.

The structure is more in line with Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, while the characters never all meet up in one huge scene (And a couple are curiously absent), everyone has their moment to shine and a part to play. A lot of the team-ups were unexpected, but mostly work. It's hard to talk about without spoiling, which I will not do.

Marvel has always had a villain problem, 90% of them are bland and throwaway fodder just to fill the space of a bad without any real character. Thanos, on the other-hand is a completely different beast. Josh Brolin delivers an extremely developed and compelling villain. It's so rare that a villain comes along where you completely agree with his motivation and why he does what he does. Despite being the bad guy, he has genuine heart and emotion behind him, leading to a moment of surprisingly brutality that I didn't think the MCU had in it. It really helped that Brolin is given such a huge amount of screen-time, possibly more than the heroes themselves.

Much like the Guardians films, this is an extremely gorgeous film to look at, filled with mostly impressive CG (Aside from a couple of Thanos' throwaway goons). It's not just the CGI too, the cinematographer is top notch too, there's so many bright and beautiful locations, a far cry from the ugly and televisual Age of Ultron.  Alan Silvestri's score was also fantastic. Again, scores are something the MCU seem to overlook, so it was great to hear a memorable orchestral score in a Marvel films.

Like I said, it's not all perfect though. A big problem I have had with the MCU is the lame humour and while there is quite a bit of eye-rollingly embarrassing comedy here, it's not as intrusive as it has been in the past. It's much more in line with Civil War, where they let moments of emotion breathe rather than throw in some stupid joke and remove any kind of tension. That said, there are some moments that are genuinely funny, it's not massively hilarious, but I do have to remember these kids films, despite how dark and mature Infinity War gets.

And Infinity War does get dark. A lot of people die, some long running, some not. While some of the deaths will be impossible for the MCU to commit to, it didn't make the ending scenes any less haunting or unsettling. There were one or two deaths that just got a collective shrug from me though, particularly the ones early on.

Infinity War really is a hard film to talk about, it's half a film, despite losing the "Part 1" in the title, this really feels like the first part of a film, and luckily we only have a year to see the resolution to the Empire Strikes Back style ending, but based on this, I'm sure it'll be worth the wait.


Superhero fatigue might be slowly kicking in, but Infinity War manages to be an ambitious and devastating entry into the now 19th film MCU that are slowly learning from their mistakes. I don't know what more I could have wanted from this film.

8/10 Dans

Avengers: Infinity War is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written July 6th, 2017*

"The Almost Amazing Spider-Man"

I was pretty on the fence about Spider-Man: Homecoming before its release (Can you blame me?), the trailers have been uninspired, the posters sucked and Sony have fucked up Spider-Man more times than they've done it right. So I was actually pretty surprised that I liked Homecoming as much as I did.

Spidey joining the MCU is a big deal, they used him effectively in Captain America: Civil War, and this takes place mere moments after that in the form of a video log during Peter's time in Berlin with Stark. It also takes place 8 years after the events of The Avengers, as it still deals with the after effects of the Battle of Manhattan.

I'll say the stuff I liked first. Tom Holland is excellent as Peter Parker and Spider-Man. It was so refreshing to see a different take on the character as a young and naive kid, but still already Spider-Men (No origin story again, thank fuck. No mention of Uncle Ben either). It doesn't cover ground with seen before, although it does pay homage to a few moments from Sam Raimi's trilogy. Holland isn't an actor I'm very familiar with, but he really carried the film and was far better than Andrew Garfield's mentally challenged Marty McFly Peter Parker.

The stuff I loved the most was all the high-school stuff. This feels like a love letter to John Hughes' films. It's a coming of age tale as Peter has to balance his double life as a student and Spider-Man. There are some wonderful homages to Ferris Bueller's day off and other general cliches of these sort of '80s high school comedies, and that's where Homecoming really shines.

There's a decent supporting cast. Michael Keaton is far more memorable than most Marvel villains as The Vulture, although he's a little underused. His character had genuine motivation, charm and real intimidation, especially during an hilarious scene towards the end as he's forced into a situation by pure coincidence and has to deal with Peter Parker, rather than Spider-Man. I loved Zendaya as Michelle, who delivers some really dead-pan humour while still remaining cool and I hope to see her expanded for further films. I really did not like Jacob Batalon as Ned, he was a purely lame attempt at humour and felt like he was directly from the worst of Marvel.

It is seriously funny at times too. I usually find Marvel films to be horrifically childish and cringe-worthy with their humour (Age of Ultron and Thor 2 being the biggest offenders), but it really helps that the humour doesn't really feel like a marvel film and does actually pull out some decent gags, including one that was surprisingly dark for a kids film. Captain America's brief appearances also make for some of the funniest stuff in the MCU to date. Homecoming easily has the best closing 3 seconds of a Marvel film so far and best post credits scene.

Where I found fault in Homecoming however was the pacing and action. I found myself really bored in moments during the action, which were very forgettable (And spoiled in the trailers). It should have been trimmed down to around 2 hours. The only action I really liked was the montage of Spider-Man just being a "Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man". The finale was a complete trainwreck. It wasn't a bombastic, city-destroying end, but it was far too dark to see what was happening, so I was so taken out of the film and I just wanted it to end by this point.

The CGI was pretty solid for the most part, but I really don't like the look of Spider-Man's suit, it just looks really fake and distracting, but I did like variety of gadgets and settings it had. His homemade suit is better though.

They made a huge deal of Robert Downey Jr. returning as Iron Man here and Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan. Thanfully, they did not steal the spotlight at all and it was all about Peter. Iron Man did add a genuinely sweet touch of being Peter's father figure in the film. Again, something I hope is explored in the future. Assuming, Iron Man dies in the next Avengers film, that could make for an interesting character arc for Peter.

Spider-Man: Homecoming has its faults like a lack of any interesting action or visual style (It is very "Marvelized"), I still had a lot of fun with it and it's easily the best Spider-Man film in 13 years now. Here's to more good Spidey films.

7/10 Dans

Spider-Man: Homecoming is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Iron Man (2008) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written December 29th, 2015*

"Strong beginnings"

Marking the start of Marvel's 'Cinematic Universe', Iron Man is a really great start to a franchise that has been victim to the law of diminishing returns as of late. Not saying they're bad, they just aren't as fresh or fun as they like to think they are.

Following Robert Downey Jr as a sarcastic billionaire weapons dealer who gets captured by terrorists in the Middle East and escapes, but changes his ways to stop making weapons and helps people instead... with a suit, that is essentially a weapon.

I did like the progression of Tony Stark's character. He's an asshole, but he's an asshole you hate to love. He's nothing more than a playboy that also happens to be a scientific genius. Despite this, there is a certain charm to Robert Downey Jr's performance that I can't see the role of Tony Stark being played by anyone else. The guy is a charisma magnet. I found him much more endearing than say the humble Captain America, or any of the other Avengers for that matter.

Jeff Bridges plays Obidiah Stone, the villain of the piece, and while he is a more interesting villain than most of the MCU, that really doesn't say much. By the end of it, he is just another throwaway villain that ends up fighting the hero with powers that are the same as the hero, but evil. Yawn.

There are some fun action scenes though. The first 40 minutes are easily the strongest, especially with Tony in captivity and it feels weird to see the small beginnings of these films that mostly seem to end with a whole city being leveled in a CGI frenzy. Here, things seem more restrained and it works.

As the first film in the now huge MCU, there is obviously some world building. We get the first appearance of Agent Coulson, a good character, but he's not given a lot to do here rather than say the name of his agency. Then in the first post credits sting we have Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury, trying to recruit Tony to the Avengers Initiative. I'm sure the film was also littered with references to Marvel comics and what not, but I don't really know any of that stuff.

Iron Man is great start to Marvel's MCU, it is carried by Robert Downey Jr's charisma and there are a couple of shortcomings, but this was a lot of fun and I can't wait to go forward with my rewatch of the MCU.

8/10 Dans

Iron Man is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Captain America: Civil War (2016) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written on April 29th, 2016*

Here we are, Marvel's biggest film of the year. I was a little sceptical of this, as I've have been suffering some Marvel film fatigue. I was severely disappointed by Age of Ultron and Ant Man was just fine, so I pleasantly surprised by Civil War, which is now probably in my top 3 of the MCU.

After all the carnage caused by most of the previous films of the MCU, the government finally decide it's time to keep The Avengers in check, something not all the team members agree with. Split into two sides, one led by Captain America and the other by Iron Man, they go to "war" while trying to deal with Bucky situation left at the end of The Winter Soldier.

I'll get the bad out the way first. Again, like 90% of the films in the MCU, the villain is forgettable and bland. His motivations are pretty clear at least by the end so it was fairly easy to sympathize with him. It's just we were given enough time with this character played by a fairly talented actor who deserved more. He also didn't get in on a single action scene, which was strange.

Captain America and Iron Man

I will also say it played a little too safe, there was no real or big surprises here. The big reveals are stuff people (Including myself) have predicted since 2014, when the Winter Soldier was released. It didn't bother me too much though, because at the end of the day, I was just there to have a good time and that's what I got, a good time.

It was also a real display of how far some of the main characters have come since the beginning of the MCU. Tony Stark is far more mature and responsible than he used to be and has somehow become the voice of reason in the group. While Captain America has adjusted to the modern day, he even had a smartphone and his morality hasn't changed, but he still does the right thing.

What scared me most about Civil War was the run-time, I had no idea until just a couple of days ago that was 2 and a half hours long and the longest entry in the MCU so far. So I was a little braced for a slog, but I didn't really feel that time at all, despite being extremely tired and worried I was going to nod off throughout.

I was also pretty pleased by the focus on Captain America, despite the large roster of characters to play with, new and old, the focus is firmly on Cap' and his fractured friendship with Bucky that comes to a fairly satisfying conclusion in the finale with some surprisingly high feeling stakes.

Tom Holland as the new Spider-Man

The action is far more inventive than other MCU films, there's no big third act where a whole city is levelled. It all felt personal to the characters and had some really cool moments. The airport fight was awesome and gave each character a time to shine. The Russo Brothers really seem to have a handle on these characters and the action, so I'm excited to see what they do with the two part Avengers: Infinity War.

In terms of story. Not every character felt essential to the plot, but it all made sense to the plot, and any second spent with the gorgeous Elizabeth Olsen was fine by me. With the new additions, Black Panther was fine and his character is introduced with no boring origin story and very quickly into the story which was fine.

Then we have the big new character to the mix: Spider-Man. Who I loved, he stole the show with every scene he was in. He felt far different than the Raimi Trilogy and the misguided 'Amazing' series which was short lived. Here he's fun and full of quips and pop-culture references and he felt like an actual kid, which was nice. And I liked Stark's small, but fatherly like relationship with him, which will explored more in Spidey's own film in the MCU 'Homecoming'. I gotta say, the new aunt May, I did not see that coming, what a lovely bit of bacon.

Civil War was a pleasant surprise overall. A fun, action packed entry in the MCU with smaller action, but higher emotional stakes. It's also pretty much everything Batman V Superman failed to be. Excellent.

8/10 Dans

Captain America: Civil War is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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