Somewhere in the comic universe, there is a Mason-Dixon Line (a Stark-Wayne Line?) that separates Marvel from DC. Fierce battles take place across that line. As you may guess, dear reader, this is…not…one of them.
You’ve heard about Iron Man 2, right? It’s, like, the biggest movie in the world. Right now. (But not of ever. Some other movie has that title.)
The Losers? Well…that one is…not so big.
Which is to say that this post has absolutely nothing to do with fair fights.
Iron Man 2 represents the Marvel camp. It is, of course, the sequel to Iron Man, a pretty classic book that has gone in and out of print and gave great inspiration to the Ghostface Killah (never gettin’ iller). The sequel stars Robert Downey, Jr., an Oscar winner, the guy who toplined Angel Heart [SPOILER], and the hottest woman on the planet*. It was released in early May and has earned north of $250 million in North America since its opening. There’s a strong likelihood that you’ve already seen it.
The Losers represents the DC camp. It’s a really old school comic from WWII that has kinda been rebooted a couple of times and lacks a cool rapper to give it any credibility. It stars Nancy Botwin’s dead husband, Stringer Bell [SPOILER], the guy who is about to play Captain America, Michael from The Lost Boys [RIP] and the hottest woman on another planet*. It was released in late April and has earned south of $25 million in North America since its opening. There’s a strong likelihood that you hated having to watch so many commercials for it during the closing weeks of the NBA regular season.
The tale of the tape is pretty obvious, huh? This match-up was a bit like asking a clementine to battle a Red Delicious apple. If the NBA play-offs hadn’t taken a couple of days off, it may never have happened. But they did. So it did. When I bought one ticket and watched both films a couple of nights ago.
Iron Man 2 is very six-y. That dude Dustin said so. I’m inclined to agree. To a degree. Any time you plop down to watch a movie that has the number 2 in its title, you can only really expect one thing: it’s gonna try to make another boatload of money based on all of the cool things that happened in the movie that preceded it. Hollywood is a business. No one has gone too far to see that. Iron Man 2 is an exercise in cool. And it works. Mostly.
I cannot say the same about The Losers. It’s also an exercise in cool. But it doesn’t work. Whereas Iron Man 2 made a sincere attempt to develop or expand a narrative, The Losers was just a collection of scenes where some kinda cool shit happened that involved some people who were trying to act cool, but the story didn’t tie together at all. It’s a popcorn movie that forgot to bring the butter. And the salt. Which is not necessarily a fail. But is really, really, really far from success.
To be perfectly frank, the best thing I can say about The Losers is that it provided an opportunity to see a trailer for this movie. Which looks like it could be the popcorn-iest movie of all time. Which ought to be a very cool thing. As long as the butter helps it all congeal properly.
WINNER: Iron Man 2.
LOSER: Screenwriter for The Losers.
*Denotes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And you should probably go on ahead and behold that.
