Iron Man 2 (2010)

"If there's one thing I've proven, it's that you can count on me to pleasure myself."

I loved the first film. I love this one too. Not as much as the first film, but a lot.

Yes, the plot may meander a bit, and contain a predictable bit where the hero hits rock bottom, but it works. Robert Downey Jr is still born to play Tony Stark. Gwyneth Paltrow is a fine Pepper, yet again, and still has great charisma with Downey. And Don Cheadle is much better as Rhodey. We also get loads and loads and loads of Tony being charismatic and Iron Man action sequences. That gets us halfway there already. And then there’s the Elon Musk cameo...

The conceit works- Tony is dying from the very thing that keeps him alive, and so needs to develop things from his father’s past while Justin Hammer acts as antagonist and this time the baddie is a rather different variation on Whiplash. Plus we get a splendid big set piece at the Monaco Grand Prix, and a lot of world building; there’s a lot about Nick Fury’s Avengers Initiative, we meet Black Widow and discover a familiar-looking old shield. And the post-credits points it all toward to Thor. It’s positively nostalgic seeing all these early MCU films. But the film works on its own terms, carried along by strong characters and a superb cast even if the plot, while perfectly decent, doesn’t quite have the narrative flow if the first film. Three films in and the MCU is going strong.

9½ Weeks (1986)

"I almost waited too long."

Oh dear. I've blogged some bad films in my time but this is by far the worst, committing that most unforgivable of sins: dullness. Even the sex scenes are as slow and boring as the film itself.

For what it's worth, both Kim Basinger and a pre-plastic surgery Mickey Rourke actually bother, for some reason, to give interesting performances, but sadly this does not detract from the fact that nothing seems to happen over two whole hours. The conceit, which is nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is, is a sexual attraction between two urban and alienated individuals who proceed to have various kinds of mildly interesting yet ultimately meaningless sex, yet ultimately fail to develop a proper relationship because of the lack of anything deeper to the relationship. That's it. Really. No need to watch the film now that you've read that. Even the sex scenes really are as slow and boring as everything else.

Part of the problem is the interminable pace, which is the director'a fault for the most part- so many slow scenes of people looking at each other across a room and doing nothing- and part of it is a total lack of charm or humour within the script: this doesn't exactly qualify as a "romantic comedy".

Having said all that, at least the wife and I were amused by the ending and its "walking away music", just like with Bill Bixby at the end of every episode of The Incredible Hulk...