My Boird

 

The second Iron Man movie was built on the success of the first one, made only a short time afterwards. In retrospect, this movie is truly based on the idea of legacy: For Tony, he’s the legacy of his father, a weapons manufacturer. It’s also about Tony’s legacy: what he brings to the world (10+ years later, it’s also about a young Peter Parker not knowing he’s Tony’s future legacy) as Iron Man and Stark Industries. I really like this movie. I remember watching it on New Year’s Eve one year. It’s also the only DVD I completely wore out and had to buy the Blu-ray. Robert Downey, Jr shows he’s truly Tony Stark and how a man like that deals with his past and the possibility of the future.

 

• Moscow: Anton Vanko watches Tony Stark say he’s Iron Man and dies. It’s the same dude from Agent Carter. Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko screams and drinks vodka. He has ARC Reactor blueprints and starts making a miniature one like Tony. There are apparently only two men in the world capable of such a feat -- with a box of scraps!!!
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Stark Expo – I like this opening much better than the deleted scene of him throwing up on the plane while in his Iron Man armor. For me, it doesn’t make any sense to have somebody like Tony Stark nervous to speak in front of a crowd. Iron Man jumping out of plane only to land in a superhero pose while AC\DC plays makes much more sense, and I love it. Did I mention it’s in the same location as the World’s Fair during WWII during Captain America?
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Trying to reinvent his father as a Walt Disney type, right down to the “World of Tomorrow” speech. Tony’s still arrogant as hell (at least to the public)
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Tony gets out a “Stark Medical Device” and tests his blood toxicity (due to the paladium). It reminds me of a Theranos device but small and Stark-ified
  
  
  Theranos's technology eliminates multiple lab trips because it can "run any combination of tests, including sets of follow-on tests," at once, very quickly, all from a single microsample. Ms. Holmes estimates that patients and doctors will receive readouts in "as little as two hours" and can even do so before an office visit based on their physician's recommendation for better, or at least less ad hoc, consultations. . .(LINK)
  
  
•  Hey it’s Psylocke
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  This sequence has a few guest stars: Larry Ellison (the first of many Oracle references), Stan Lee (as Larry King) and Seth Green. You also see the little boy in the Iron Man mask who is actually a young Peter Parker, albeit very briefly. He really likes that mask
  
  
•  Tony doesn’t like to be handed things. Even by the disastrous Fantastic Four Sue Storm as a US Marshal
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  The Senate Committee – with Senator Stern, who we know to be a HYDRA member. Would he have given the armor to HYDRA?
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Sam Rockwell is brilliant as Justin Hammer. Hammer’s a sort of weapons dealer rival but doesn’t have the charisma, charm or intelligence of Stark. They are not equals. But I do love Sam Rockwell in this role. I hope he comes back as Justin Hammer. I'm not sure if it was Rockwell in that What If Episode with him going Die Hard in Avengers Tower, but it was great...
  
  
•  Don Cheadle as the new Rhodey. I’m not gonna talk about it
  
  
•  Other countries are trying to make Iron Man armor but won’t have it for 5-10 years. Well, in the MCU it’s been that long –where’s the armor from hostile countries?
  
  
•  Justin Hammer seriously wounds a test pilot in his armor. Is this the same Air Force officer who had a spinal cord injury as described in Doctor Strange?
  
  
•  Tony thinks he’s dying so he makes Pepper the next CEO of Stark Industries. I mean, she practically runs the business anyways but what are her real qualifications? She’s a personal assistant
  
  
•  Tony gets a new assistant, Natalie Rushman. Obviously, Natasha “Black Widow” Romanoff is undercover. SHIELD had to create a solid background (or as they say, legend) for a non-existent lawyer and make her speak Latin and model in Japan. Plus be attractive to Tony (gosh, tough) and competent. And make it fool Tony Stark
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  And for the record, for a new CEO, Pepper is wearing very expensive shoes
  
  
• Ivan’s super-secret illegal meeting takes place OUTSIDE HIS MOSCOW APARTMENT!
  
  
• MONACO: GRAND PRIX. A Formula One racing event held every year in Monaco around May or June. There really is a Hotel De Paris and it costs around $2,782 a night
  
  
•  Elon Musk was there, before he tried to take over the world. He wants an electric jet. Apparently this is something he’s been working on at Tesla but it hasn’t been made yet. Also, he’s about to become a trillionaire
  
  
  
  
  
•  Justin Hammer’s trying to impress his real-life romantic partner Christine Everhard at Vanity Fair (she’s still working there despite sleeping with one of her subjects, a journalistic ethical no-no). Even she knows Hammer’s no Tony Stark
  
  
•  Tony knows he’s dying and I think he’s going to drive the F1 car because he thinks he’ll be killed out there on the track. According to Brad Pitt and the F1 movie, driving one of those things is not for amateurs and it can cost millions (which he’s got). Tony taking one of the drivers off the car is like asking Lewis Hamilton to step aside (check out the article I linked cuz the Monaco Grand Prix is like, now)
  
  
•  Ivan Vanko just walks out onto the track. Just because you’re tough and Russian doesn’t mean you can’t get hit by a F1 car – or a regular one. Explosions and fire could hurt him too
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Tony calls it “The Football,” after the President’s briefcase of nuclear codes, and it’s handcuffed to Happy like it was the real thing. It’s among the coolest “armor-up” sequences ever
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Vanko served time in a Russian prison and has tons of prison tattoos (think he served time with Alexi Shostakoff?) and yet French authorities can’t identify him? He was on the cover of the New York News
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Vanko made God bleed. Something Tony would later do to Thanos
  
  
•  The prisoner exchanged for Vanko is better known as the “Ponytail Express” from Iron Man 3. Maybe that guy had a French cousin in the penal system?
  
  
•  Hammer actually brings Vanko a “boird.” It’s from Russia, did he get the right bird? Was it from Vanko’s Moscow apartment?
  
  
•  We get the download of info about the Vankos, how close they are in Stark history. Imagine if Anton was successful and it was Tony living some ordinary life in the middle of America? Ivan Vanko was the CEO of Vanko Industries and living the life?
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  How does palladium cause wounds that look like a “high tech crossword puzzle?”
  
  
•  Tony’s ill-advised Birthday Party. By the way, a Jaeger watch with the gold face and brown band can cost anywhere between $89,895.00 and $17,770.00 and everywhere in between
  
  
•  DJ AM, AKA Adam Goldstein was a popular DJ and friends with rocker Travis Barker. In 2008, they both survived a plane crash with severe injuries. Unfortunately, he overdosed on heavy drugs a year later. 
  
  
•  I think this is where the filmmakers tried to shoehorn in the “Demon in a bottle” storyline and making Tony an alcoholic
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Although everybody noticed it well after the movie came out: when Rhodey and Tony crash through the ceiling, Natasha goes into a Black Widow pose, ready to attack or defend
  
  
•  I would like to know where the drunk hot chick got a full watermelon. And where’s the hot tub for the bikini girls? I see a pool in the Cross-Sections book but no hot tub!
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Tony sitting in Randy's Donuts donut is damn iconic. In real life, the donut is made of fiberglass and not accessible to the public. The weight of the armor would have probably shattered the sign. Also, that’s not even the inside of Randy’s Donuts, it’s some other donut place down the street
  
  
•  Nick Fury makes a reappearance, looking like Samuel L. Jackson. How did they know Tony was sick?
  
  
•  Rhodey flies to an active Air Force Base, populated by some of the same officers from the first Iron Man. And an SR-71 Blackbird, like in the X-Men movies
  
  
•  Nick refers to trouble in the South West region, meaning New Mexico and THOR
  
  
  
  
  
  
• So Tony gave Rhodey access to the suit, became drunk and knew if he behaved irresponsibly enough, Rhodey would take an Iron Man suit to the Air Force. Master plan…
  
  
•  Natasha gives Tony Lithium Dioxide to temporarily counteract palladium poisoning. However, there is no such thing as Lithium Dioxide. Google only says there’s lithium oxide which is a hazardous substance to put into your body via injection
  
  
•  Nick knew Howard quite well as a founder of SHIELD, which means Nick’s been in SHIELD since before Howard’s death in 1991,before Captain Marvel
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Did Howard base the ARC reactor and new element on the Tesseract? Sure seems so! So it seems Howard was working on the energy race and the super soldier race before he died!
  
  
•  Tony’s wearing his dad’s robe
  
  
•  Coulson watches Super Nanny. It was a British show where a nanny travels the country taking care of bratty kids.
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  It’s been established that Hammer’s software is“shit,” that Vanko was able to bypass it so quickly. However, he still “upgrades” the War Machine armor, making it easy for Vanko to take control later on
  
  
•  The FN2000 is a Belgian assault rifle and Belgian waffles are delicious. There’s also the M134 minigun, which apparently costs a fortune just to fire and weighs a ton. Apparently it was never nicknamed “Puff the Magic Dragon.” The shotgun is not pump action as described
  
  
•  And Ulysses was written in crayon. James Joyce was going blind
  
  
•  I think Howard was drunk when he made the Stark Expo videos back in the 70’s
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Strawberries are quite popular along the PCH in Los Angeles, but I’m not sure I’d want to buy them from a roadside stand
  
  
•  Bill O’Reilly calls Pepper a “pinhead” and asks about her qualifications as a pinhead. I really can't stand that guy
  
  
•  His father hid the chemical makeup of a new element in the layout of the Stark Expo. Weird. It’s also never named or mentioned again. What else can it be used for except to power an armored suit?
  
  
•  One of the crates Tony opens does say “Project Pegasus.” This was the project studying the Tesseract, including Dr. Lawson from Captain Marvel. Since Tony doesn’t know about the Tesseract yet (although his father’s journal did have drawings and equations in it regarding the Tesseract) it must be when his father was working on it post WWII
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Also Howard's, a prototype Captain America shield, apparently made of plastic. Coulson knows damn well what it is
  
  
• Coulson is off to New Mexico (more later) for a classified assignment. In SHIELD terms, Thor’s hammer is an “084,” or an object of unknown origin
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Tony learns Vanko is alive and again uses the Oracle network. The new ARC reactor tastes like coconut and metal
  
  
•  Of course Hammer dances and makes bad jokes
  
  
•  And of course the Hammer Drones are fully operational and come to life to attack Iron Man
  
  
•  And here it comes, the unexpected legacy we learned retroactively, the little kid in the Iron Man mask is PETER PARKER. He’s probably there with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. “Nice job, kid” is the same thing Tony says to Peter in Germany years later
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  I did notice that everything on Vanko’s screen are in Russian. Hammer suggests to his tech guys to concentrate on the code in Russian.
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  It’s ironic that a former Russian operative is going after a Russian criminal. I would crash the car too if Scarlett Johansson is undressing in my back seat
  
  
•  Black Widow takes out a bunch of Hammer thugs. This would later be the footage that Taskmaster uses to copy all of Natasha’s moves in Thunderbolts. Also, Happy is losing the fight until he cheats and goes Mike Tyson on the guy
  
  
• How is Natasha seeing Tony’s stats on Vanko’s computer? Does that mean Ivan could monitor Tony during the fight?
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Justin Hammer is arrested and is eventually sent to Seagate prison (where he gets a boyfriend and sees Trevor Slattery). What could he have been charged with?  He broke Ivan Vanko out of prison (resulting in deaths), had Vanko build a fleet of weaponized drones on behalf of the US government. Vanko then used those drones to attack both Iron Man and civilians, resulting in more deaths and extreme destruction of property
  
  
  
  
  
  
•  Vanko has new armor with a better cyclic rate than his old ARC reactor and takes on both Iron Man and War Machine. They all fight in Oracle Gardens, the last of the Oracle Easter Eggs
  
  
•  The “Ex-wife” is a great name for a weapon system but a "kinetic kill sidewinder” type weapon needs to be fired from a distance, so it didn’t work up close. At first, I thought Vanko knew the weapon was “shit” and didn’t bother to put down his mask. But it turns out that weapon needs to be going fast.
  
  
•  Spoiler: Pepper doesn’t resign as CEO and continues to head Stark Industries after Tony’s death in Endgame
  
  
  
  
  
•  SHIELD Warehouse: you can see Hulk news footage on the screen as well as Wakanda on the world map
  
  
• Post Credit Scene: Coulson finds Thor’s hammer. Hammer just happens to be the last name of the bad guy of this movie! Oddly, Coulson says “Sir, we’ve found it.” Found what, they wouldn’t know what it is.
  Maybe he’s just referring to whatever 084 they saw on radar when it crash-landed on Midgard
  
  
•  Onto Thor