IRON MAN 2

IRON MAN 2 (variously formatted). John Favreau, dir. Justin Theroux, script. Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, et al., Iron Man comic by Marvel. USA: Paramount, Marvel Entertainment/Studios, Fairview Entertainment (prod.) / Paramount and others (dist.), 2010 (see IMDb for production and complex distribution). Robert Downey Jr., star, with A-list supporting cast.

Sequel to IRON MAN (2008, q.v.). We see and are told explicitly that the technology that allows Tony Stark to live — his high-tech heart/power source — is also killing him, literally poisoning him. Significantly, the solution to this medical/technological problem is additional technology, but technology stemming from a message of concern from Tony's technophilic, distant, and dead father, delivered through some fairly classy home movies, but still, in the relevant portion, a home movie. See also for the power suits in various styles, from Tony Stark's modernist to Ivan Vando's cyberpunk-Industrial (with a dollop of S&M). A number of the suits are called "drones" and operated remotely, in the manner of J. Haldeman's Soldier Boys — except Vando alone can operate them — and some look like they could become eventually autonomous: for such evolution of fighting suites, see L. G. Heldreth's "In Search of the Ultimate Weapon: The Fighting Machine in Science Fiction Novels and Films," in T. Dunn and R. Erlich's The Mechanical God (1982). Note that ethical and political issues of some consequence are raised but not seriously developed, the movie moving instead to highly stylish battle-bot fights and the elegant blowing up of large quantities of stuff (though not, that we see, people) — for very high-class techno-porn, but techno-porn.

5. DRAMA, RDE, 07/V/10