Critics Consensus: Iron Man 2 Is Certified Fresh
Plus, Babies is cute, and Mother and Child is powerful.
This week at the movies brings just one wide release: Iron Man 2, the hotly-anticipated superhero sequel starring Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, and Scarlett Johansson. What do the critics have to say?
Iron Man 2
As with many blockbuster sequels, Iron Man 2 is bigger, louder, and filled with more characters than its predecessor. Critics say that doesn't mean it's better, but it's still got enough firepower to kick off the summer in fine style -- and the always-delightful presence of Robert Downey Jr. ensures that Iron Man 2 stays on track. Downey is back as Tony Stark, the multimillionaire and professional adventurer who dons the high-tech Iron Man getup and is reluctant to turn his creation over to the military. However, he's got other problems on his hands -- most notably Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), who's got an old score to settle with Stark. The pundits say the Certified Fresh Iron Man 2 features strong work from its fine ensemble cast, and the action scenes are top-notch, but overall, it doesn't quite have the heft of the first film. (Check out this week's Total Recall, in which we count down Cheadle's best-reviewed movies.)
Also opening this week in limited release:
- Casino Jack and the United State of Money, a documentary about disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is at 92 percent.
- Welcome, a drama about a Kurdish refugee's attempts to reunite with his girlfriend in England, is at 88 percent.
- Mother and Child, starring Naomi Watts and Samuel L. Jackson in a drama about the effects of adoption on three women, is at 84 percent.
- OSS 117: Lost in Rio, the latest installment of the satirical espionage series, is at 78 percent.
- Babies, a doc about the lives of four infants around the world, is at 66 percent.
- Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers, a transgressive pseudo-documentary featuring a group of eccentrics making mischief, is at 38 percent.
- Multiple Sarcasms, starring Timothy Hutton and Mira Sorvino in the tale of a man who tries to stave off a midlife crisis by becoming a playwright, is at zero percent.
Mitchell Nash
Certified Fresh with a Tomato-meter score of 67%?...
May 6 - 03:21 PM
kurt cassidy
It's fresh until it's below 60.
Glad to see it!
May 6 - 03:28 PM
Mitchell Nash
@K.J. Cassidy
If I'm correct, I think it works like this:
A movie can get certified Fresh if it has 25 reviews or more and is at 75% or higher when those reviews come in. It can keep this 'Certified Fresh' stamp until it dips below 60%.
Can anyone confirm this with/for me? :D
@Anyone Else
With regards to the Tomato-meter, yeah, you could have every critic giving a movie 6.0/10 to receive 100%, and every critic give a movie 5.9/10 and have that score 0%.
When I look at a movie, I look at it's Tomato-meter first, then it's average rating, then top critics, and finally RT Community.
Iron Man 2 has 68%, 6.3/10, 59%, and 84% respectively.
Iron Man has 93%, 7.6/10, 92%, and 94% respectively.
Also, I saw the movie. It was pretty lackluster [in my opinion, I have to put this or people will kill me for stating 'opinion' as 'fact']. What I liked best was actually Stark's moments realizing how his father actually was.
May 6 - 09:22 PM
Mitchell Nash
Correction:
Maybe that's 40 reviews, not 25, and I left out how a certain number of top critics [5 I think] have to give a review.
May 6 - 09:26 PM
Tipton Brian
It's 74% not 68%, genius. Look for yourself.
May 8 - 01:33 PM
Mitchell Nash
@Tipton B.
Don't be so ignorant. You realize the Tomato-meter changes over time, right? When I posted first, it was 67%, then my next post it was 68%, now it's 75%. Before you start criticizing people, use your brain.
"It's 75% not 74%, genius. Look for yourself." Right back at you.
May 9 - 10:04 AM
Juan Valdez
It's not your opinion that bothers me, it's that it's not YOUR opinion. It's Internet Groupthink that you're regurgitating back on a message board because you want to be accepted by the Mass of the Great Unwashed.
May 7 - 12:03 PM
Flux Boy
Hold on Maven ...
You're stating your opinion as fact.
Try to work on that a little.
May 7 - 02:56 PM
Mitchell Nash
Yeah, okay. Haha. I just posted my own opinion of a movie that I had watched.
May 9 - 10:05 AM
Alex Lavoie
Does RT is fan of the super-hero crappy genre? Because it looks like. These movies are for the simple minds.
May 6 - 05:36 PM
joe schmoe
When critisizing people for being simple minded, it's probably best to steer away from the grammatical errors. Keep rocking that Blade Runner avatar though, because it's one of the only movies Scott has made that was actually deep.
But yeah, I didn't think the first Iron Man was anything special. I was indifferent to it. It was just good enough to be above average, and somehow that warranted a 90% on the T-Meter. Are people's standards that low or what? Now Iron Man 2 is performing significantly worse than than the first one on the R-T, and it will probably dip even further as it comes closer to release. I expect it to be about as entertaining as X3, but not as bad as Wolverine.
This is supposed to be one of the biggest movies this year? The sign of another disappointing summer movie season if you ask me. Just give me Inception, Splice, and Due Date, and bring on the fall already.
May 6 - 05:55 PM
Alexson Philipiah
jay sherman. your a complete ignorant dum ass. this movie is great. its loved by fans and said to be pretty good by non comic book fans. alot of critics gave this film a 4/4 which is 100% (just so you don't hurt yourself trying to find out how much that is), but mosjority gave it scores that are from 6.2 to 8.0. so its still good. just not gas great as its predecessor. XMEN 3 was complete ****, and shouldnt even be called a movie.
May 6 - 07:36 PM
Matt Lubisich
De A Twist, actually you are the dumb ass because Iron Man 2 has an adjusted score of 6.3 out of 10 from the critics, so you arguing that a lot of critics have given it 100% ratings is pretty stupid.
May 6 - 07:52 PM
Takis Iomos
You have to keep in mind that tomato meter is different from average review. 90% of critics said Iron Man 1 was fresh, but you could be at 100% if everyone gave you 6.0/10. The tomato meter is not always an entirely accurate reflection of overall opinion, if the movie is just good enough to be liked and appeals to critics overall. That's why with some movies you'll see a high tomato meter but a number of middling reviews.
May 6 - 09:00 PM
Alexson Philipiah
(sigh) MATT L
Yo shut the *** up. i meant as in there were alot of 100% ratings by critics but the majority of them gave it a 6.3. majority wins. look at the actual ratings given by each critic.
May 6 - 09:32 PM
Juan Valdez
No, YOU'RE a dumbass because... well, let's just blame genetics and be done with it.
May 7 - 12:05 PM
The Watcher
I wanna see Splice so bad it hurts. Ever since it was first announced at Sundance, I was itching to see it. Now it's finally coming out and I'm stoked.
IM was a great movie, though.
May 6 - 07:45 PM
Crornk Kaleidescope
I would throw my hat in the Iron Man supporting rink but since it appears the fanboys are out in force and are merely making all of us look like whiny idiots I think I'll just keep quiet. Seriously people if you're going to go to the effort of trying to prove someone wrong why not try to come off as someone who isn't a bratty twelve year old. Learn to speak (and write) in English so all of us Iron Man fans don't look like a bunch of raving, illiterate, morons.
May 6 - 08:02 PM
Tamas Kovacs
What the hell did the film makers do to make the critics give Iron Man 2 such a low tomatometer compared to Iron Man? It's very troubling. Iron Man was nice but I wished there was a bit more action. Can't even imagine how I'm going to react to Iron Man 2.
May 6 - 09:44 PM
Mitchell Nash
Tamas K.
Well, if we had the story on Iron Man with the CGI and some action of Iron Man 2, you'd probably be completely satisfied, as would I. :D But, Iron Man 2 was a disappointment to me.
May 6 - 09:59 PM
Matthew Cuffe
Everyone is getting a little bitchy over this one. Good to see.
May 7 - 09:00 AM
Daniel Sibert
Totally agree with you bro...'Iron Man' was pretty good but not a whole lot of depth...Before you all have a cow about that statement, I KNOW superhero movies aren't supposed to be deep, but I ask why can't they be? Super her and sci-fi movies CAN be deep...Look at 'Dark Knight' and District 9'.
But yes..Bring on 'Splice' and 'Inception' please!
May 8 - 10:00 PM
Alex Reyes
I wasn't impressed either with the first Iron Man, I at the most thought it decent and kind of fun, but don't worry about the second one, it is also somewhere there. Maybe more loose and muddled when it comes to storytelling and pacing, but entertaining and with pretty good performances. At the very least, it is not at all like X Men 3, so that is something good.
May 9 - 03:10 PM
Aidan Secret
Oh yeah, super hero movies are for the simple minded.
*cough* THE DARK KNIGHT *cough* If you're going to insult a superhero movie, do some research first, buddy.
May 7 - 01:25 PM
john jones
comic book movies are suppose to be simple minded. thier generaly geared to target kids idiot, even though mostly adults consume comics as they grew up on them and read them as kids. thats like commenting about nudity reading playboy. if they were deep people would realize its wrong to label people as "evil people" and realize its actions not people that make something evil.
my only complaint with tony stark is the character itself isnt very heroish, he's kind of just a caddy ass chasing super rich jock. downey is great as him, stark just isnt deeply written as a peter parker.
this isnt a stellar superhero movie, it has too much villan dialogue and not enough action. wiplash is cool for the less than 15 minutes we get to see of him (i think the fight scene lasted barely ten at the end lol). im a new fan of sam rockwell as well, thiers too much dialogue between him and rourke and not enough bad guy ass kicking. its no spiderman 2 or superman 2 but at least its fun and not another depressing dark movie.
May 8 - 10:34 PM
Renee Knowles
You must not read many comics. Most are NOT written expressly for kids, and haven't been for, what, 30 years? "Comic book movies" include From Hell, Road to Perdition, A History of Violence, Watchmen, etc. Hardly kiddie stuff. So far as adults reading comics because that's what they did when they were children... I did not crack open my first graphic novel until I was almost 19, and of the people I know at least, that was young. American cinema (the only form I can stand in judgment of) in general is a little dumbed down; it's not an aspect unique to comic book movies. For some reason, though, people only seem to complain about it when the source material is the comic book medium. I do find it a little strange, though, that you mention comic book movies being "simple" but in the same entry you complain about Tony Stark because he's not "very heroish". That is true; Tony Stark is not very heroish. Because he is human, he is complex, he is reacting to the fact that he is dying. There is less "ass kicking", as you put it, in IM2. Frankly, I like that. This is a bit closer to what comic books actually are today. More about the writing and character development, and less about the flashy gadgets and superpowers. I think the movie was STRONGER for that, not weaker.
May 10 - 09:47 AM
celia hambright
73% now and climbing.
May 7 - 08:12 PM
Christina Porter
its now 78% or something
May 9 - 02:20 PM