I never saw the first Iron Man movie, but it was apparently very popular even though it featured less than ten main characters and wasn’t over two hours long. Marvel Studios wanted me to do a sequel, but they were too cheap to send a screener, so I had to derive my picture of the Iron Man universe solely from McDonald’s Happy Meal toys.
So let’s just focus on the movie I do know rather than the one I don’t. Iron Man 2 is about a rich brat named Ferris Bueller. At some point in the past, Bueller invented a suit of armor in which he can fly around and shoot stuff. According to Gary Shandling’s Shroud of Turin Draped Over Andy Serkis’ Face, he uses this suit in the first film to kill Arabs until there aren’t any more Arabs, which qualifies Earth for a World Peace Bronze Medal in the Intergalactic Olympics (“Special” Division).
Instead of congratulating Bueller, the American government demands his suit technology. Bueller fights back in two ways. One, he says “no”. And two, he undermines Senate authority by showing up wearing sunglasses and drinking wine from a Diet Coke can. The American government realizes Bueller is simply too charming to deal with directly, so they attempt to sabotage him through his deeply responsible and boring buddy, Cameron. In the first film Cameron was played by a black guy, but this time he’s played by Don Cheadle.
Meanwhile there’s this Russian guy named Lenin Ivan Marx Boris Stalin (aka LIMBS). He’s really upset because his dad couldn’t beat Bueller’s dad in a money fight. So now he’s determined to settle the score. To do so, he constructs an electric limb backpack out of Bueller technology. Basically this gives him really long arms that can cut through anything except Iron Man. The backpack also provides absolutely nothing in the way of defense. In fact, LIMBS’ whole game plan is actually just a gamble that a scary outfit mixed with dreads and gold teeth will scare Bueller off without any fight at all because he’s just a white-bread pussy from the suburbs. If an actual fight does break out, LIMBS is a goner because Iron Man is tough. Not even another Iron Man can beat up Iron Man. Actually, I don’t even think 5 Supermans can beat up Iron Man. They use Iron Mans to cut diamonds. Iron Man can beat Ghosts ‘n Goblins.
Unless, of course, he can use his electro-limbs on Bueller while he’s out of costume and vulnerable. It just so happens that a NASCAR race is going on in Monaco, FL, and one of the competing cars is sponsored by Bueller. LIMBS begins putting together a plan…
IF Bueller takes a break from running a company, policing the world, banging reporters, putting together elaborate model kits, and boxing his chauffeur, MAYBE he will fly across the sea to watch this race. PERHAPS while there he MIGHT get bored and impulsively decide that he, not his professional race car driver, will drive the Bueller car. Since those cars are kinda small, he PROBABLY won’t have room to carry on a cool suitcase filled with Iron Man Nano.
In the massively wide world of ways this series of assumptions could have been wrong, it really is remarkable how close LIMBS comes to his goal. He simply didn’t count on being run over several times by the comic relief. That’s just unfair on a cosmic scale.
Even though Bueller wins the fight without even breaking a sweat, LIMBS’ existence brings him all manner of nagging, especially from Cameron and Bueller’s exasperated, angry sister, Jeanie. They want him to take life seriously and stop partying all the damn time. But he’s extra resistant now because his Iron Man heart is infecting him with Digital Bloodflow which, if allowed to achieve 100%, will turn him into TRON. I spend about 20-25 minutes on this subplot not because it’s important to Iron Man 2, but because I want to set up my Summer 2013 tent-pole masterpiece: Iron Man and Tron Fight Each Other While Starman Watches (only two out of three Jeff Bridges will be CG!). This also explains the post-credit Easter Egg in which Iron Man and The Last Starfighter find out they go to the same gym.
Anyway, he develops a real “fuck it, if I’m gonna eventually get Digital Blood, I might as well get wasted and scratch records in my Iron Man costume!” attitude, which Cameron and Jeanie do not appreciate. Since asking Bueller to stop being an asshole never worked even in the best of days, Cameron decides to beat the shit out of him in a prototype suit made out of silver instead.
The Iron Man/Silver Man fight lasts about 90 seconds and constitutes the second of my contractually obligated three fight scenes. We don’t even film these things anymore, so I won’t take it personally if you think it sucked. All that work is exported now to the people at EA and SQUARE-ENIX, so you should export your complaints to them as well.
Because Bueller is drunk and Cameron has twenty years of playing sidekick to a sociopath to work out, Silver Man wins the fight. He flies himself to the government, and they immediately begin modifying Silver Man with a shit-load of heavy, bullet-based, antique weaponry.
Meanwhile, LIMBS breaks out of prison with the aid of Bueller’s nemesis, Ed Rooney, a sad, pathetic wannabe who possesses the money and the passion to defeat Bueller but not the brains. He proposes a partnership: he will pay LIMBS to make a bad guy Iron Man, and together they will defeat Ferris Bueller once and for all. At first LIMBS is like “okay.” Then he’s like “instead I’m going to make 32 drones, each painted differently according to the military branch you want them to look like.” And then finally he’s like, “I think I’ll just try to scare him again with some more electro-arms. That idea almost worked the first time.” Rooney’s pretty upset, but he’s also a gigantic pussy. So he’s at an impasse.
Back home, Bueller has almost turned completely into TRON. But then in the nick of time, he’s visited by the world’s greatest porn star/butt kicker duo: Titty-Titty Ass-Ass and One-Eyed Snake on a Plane. They give him a crate filled with his dad’s stuff, and underneath all the WWII kink, there’s a beta max tape with his name on it. Bueller immediately invents the beta max so he can watch it:
“Dear Bueller, my son. By now you’ve probably become Iron Man and you’re probably dying of Iron Blood poisoning. I know how to cure it, but my technology sucks. Please read my diary for an extremely detailed account of how to make your circle thingy a triangle thingy. Also, don’t fuck Titty-Titty Ass-Ass because she’s your mom.”
Bueller follows his dad’s orders and, without any hang-up at all, manages to turn his circle thingy into a triangle thingy.
I forgot to mention that there’s this Bueller Expo going on. Basically, it’s like a technology Comicon, except that it lasts 365 days. Apparently, any scientist can present an invention so long as they are young enough to dance across the massive stage. Big tittied women and smoke machines are a plus.
Ed Rooney decides to take his disappointing army drones to the Expo and maybe make some lemonade out of the whole trust-a-Russian debacle. During his presentation, Silver Man shows up. During his interruption, Iron Man shows up. During his warning, LIMBS hacks into all the drones and starts shooting the shit out of everything but hits absolutely nothing because he forgot to imput the auto-aim cheat.
Luckily, Iron Man has invented a weapon called “Kill Only the Stuff I’m Thinking About Right Now!” and he uses it to stop the drones all at once. But then LIMBS shows up in an Iron Man suit but BIGGER! and now with ELECTRIC ARMS just like last time! and it comes with a helmet but he can’t see with it down! Iron Man and Silver Man are scared for a moment until they remember the “Kill Only the Stuff I’m Thinking About Right Now!” gun. Iron Man thinks about LIMBS and pulls the trigger. Communism falls. LIMBS begins to say his last words, but Bueller cuts him off by catching a microphone from the sky and singing “Twist and Shout.” I just want to be him so bad!