Iron Man 2 villains revealed

[Kelso]

I've been debating about seeing this one... but after seeing a good teaser for it and seeing some reviews liek yours, I think I will.

See it.

It definitely lives up to the hype.

 

[Red Ranger]

They would like to do it, but are having a lot of trouble finding a way to do the character in a way that is both semi-plausible and true to character.

Can't be that hard.

Ken Watanabe. Respected Chinese, Hong Kong businessman by day. Leader of terrorist groups and secret power behind most of the rogue, terrorist states by night. His terrorist nickname is "The Mandarin" kind of like "Carlos The Jackal". Created by The Chinese to destroy The West and capitalism in the 1970's, but went rogue and now wants to destroy both The West and The East. Radioactive Man is his personal bodyguard. His rings are based on Iron Man tech. If I can come up with something as basic as that, a great writer and filmmaker like Favreau should have no problem.

I like it, but I say Chow Yun-Fat instead of Watanabe. Chow is actually Chinese (not that it really matters), plus Watanabe already played a comic book villain (albeit a decoy) in Batman Begins.

People,

Well, Chow Yun-Fat would be a good choice, if they decided to make the Mandarin quite close to the original comic book character. I think the main objection to that is how he's too much a "Yellow Peril" character.

In fact, much of Iron Man's early comic book adversaries were "Red Scare" types out of central casting. So it's unusual they'd go the Russian villain route, considering how they updated the villains in the first movie to the current "Terrorist Scare" type.

Now, as many of you recall, the terrorist leader in Iron Man, Faran Tahir as Reza, was supposed to be part of some group with a name including the words Ten Rings, a reference to the Mandarin. And he did recover the original armor Stark built. Does that mean that it will be Reza who eventually becomes the Mandarin? As I recall, he seemed to have a Ghengis Khan fixation.

As for villains, there are plenty of Iron Man adversaries who could be adapted into more modern-day rogues. One I thought of was a character named Doctor Spectrum, who was Marvel's villainous take on Green Lantern, who used a crystal to form light-based energy shapes and weapons like Lantern. His alter ego was African, so I can see that character as an agent of an African dictator, like the character in this year's 24.

Aside from the aforementioned Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, and Justin Hammer, other Iron Man enemies include the Unicorn, The Ghost, and Modok.

Red Ranger

 

[Ol Scratch]

I love that Sam Rockwell is going to be in it, but I'm not too thrilled about Mickey Rourke. Yeah, he was good in The Wrestler and his scenes in Sin City were amongst my favorites of that movie, but if you take a critical look at both of those -- and hell, even Kill Bill 2 -- he... well, he really doesn't play well with others.

Those stories worked because he was the center of attention when he was on the screen. He doesn't really acknowledge anyone else even when he's interacting with them. It's very weird and creepy, and not in a good big screen villain sort of way. It's especially evident in The Wrestler.