I think maybe it'd be easier to teach the hobos to referee soccer for you rather than explain the Parodyverse. Your call though.





Marvel seems to be taking pains to point that out. But then, news about Hugo Weaving playing the Red Skull in Captain America was out for nearly two months before Marvel "confirmed" it... so it's likely a matter of salary negotiations and schedules and such. I'm sure it could still fall through, but until it does I just assume it's much stronger than a rumor.





They play fast and loose with some of those details. Rhodey also seems to have known exactly how to work it as well. They at least gave a nod to the fact that you would have expected Tony would have some kind of security to keep someone else from piloting one, or that Jarvis wouldn't suit someone up without authorization, by Fury pointing out that he "let" Rhodey fly off with one of his suits.

I liked the Monaco sequence quite a bit, even though the fight wasn't far ranging. My main issue is something all of these superhero films seem to do these days... going with the assumption that because someone is a super-hero or super-villain, regardless of what their powers are of how they got them, they can shake off damage that would cripple a human. There was plenty of that in "Spider-man 2" with the Spidey/Doc Ock fight, and then when Whiplash was hit by the car here I had the same reaction.





Good points on both. I guess since Iron Man is red, they didn't want to go that way, but I would have liked to have seen a design more original looking than what they ended up with.

And I thought "crossing the streams" as well for the finale. Of course, I also wondered why they didn't just shoot him directly in the face for that matter.





I don't know the Justin Hammer of the comics at all, but I really enjoyed Sam Rockwell's character. I hope he comes back to go after Pepper in the next one.





That was my main problem with him in the after-credits scene. I was like "*This* guy is the boss of those professional agents in suits? This guy skulking around Los Angeles in a black turtleneck, trench coat and eyepatch?" He really seemed like he was from some completely different property. With the Black Widow's outfit, he at least looked somewhat more integrated here, and they gave him much more natural sounding dialog to spout. Still, I believe that he's a totally needless expense. He essentially was given all of the lines that would have gone to Agent Coulson had they never introduced him in the first place. The movie would have felt more cohesive, and Marvel would have saved on Sam Jackson's salary.

I really think Marvel needs to hold back on these kinds of cameoes until such characters are actually needed. All they are doing is limiting the options when it finally comes time to add the characters for a reason. Now they're pretty much stuck shoe-horning in Sam Jackson Fury with each property since they've signed him to a 9 picture deal before any scripts requiring him were even written.





It wasn't until this point that I realized a slightly worrying trend in Marvel's self-produced films. All three of them (Iron Man 1 & 2, Incredible Hulk) end with a fight for a fight's sake. There's really nothing bigger at stake. In the first 2 X-men films, there was a plot to stop, innocents to save. With Spider-man 2 there was Ock's experiment that would destroy the city, with Batman Begins there was the fear chemical in the water supply, and so on. With these Marvel Films, there's a bad guy who wants to fight the hero, and that's it.

I don't think that's going to continue to cut it... I think they'll need to start introducing villains who have something greater to achieve, so there's more to the climaxes of these films.