Rhodey and Tony have a bit of a heart to heart then argue about whose gun is bigger. Or is it who’s the bigger gun? Regardless, this is where we finally see THE WAR MACHINE that we’ve all come to know and love in the rest of the MCU. There’s some chat about kill boxes, then the Navy shows up. As do the Army and Marines. But the Air Force? They’re all washed up.
Natasha reboots War Machine. These suits seem to have way too much information about the other. Phantom technology. Pepper, Natasha, and Tony are all somehow all involved in the same conversation through Tony’s suit. And Tony and Pepper still are so cute when they fight. All the while Favreau is slipping you the broccoli. Did you even notice? Meanwhile, War Machine reboots one eyelid at a time.
The drones smack the back of Asia. It makes sense when you see it. Natasha finds Ivan’s room… but no Ivan. The Oracle garden turns out to be a big in-joke. And is that Elsa’s castle? What’s it doing here? We have RoboCop nods, and Don Cheadle proves he’s a real actor.
It’s Croc Talk! Black Widow continues her pseudo wrestling moves. Diamond Cutter? Hurricanrana? Reverse Sister Abigail? Definitely not a Rock Bottom. And mace in the face! As for Happy… well, he’s still learning. But Happy’s happy. Ivan gets some suit foreshadowing. Oh, and Tony actually has a plan, plus a really cool move!
Black Widow continues kicking ass, and we get the Black Widow hero pose! Where have the Marines been? Hammer’s fake glasses are too perfectly broken. Where the hell is Grid W? And once again, shout out to Heidi Moneymaker!
Natasha’s magic curls. Weird building alerts. And Favreau proves he’s a great actor, not just director. Even when he’s in trouble as he takes on a stunt performer. But it’s not just any stunt performer. It’s Duane Johnson’s cousin!
Who’s in charge here? Ivan continues his destruction as he controls Rhodey in War Machine, and Tony saves a boy. Which boy? Well, you know… there’s much speculation about that.
Forgive us our digression on incredible science fiction toys, this is the first minute in which a cosplay toy exists in-movie, and we’re going to celebrate that. Beyond that, the drones are fully in action now, and we’re here for it, anchor spikes and all.
We start with wrestling. Apparently there are fans of wrestling in the MCU and we think they should finally elevate that fandom with the hidden Marvel wrestling industrial complex. We’ve got a fun callback for Bucky and Steve at the Stark Expo, Natalie is inarguably replaced by Natasha at long last, and we have a picture wrap on Justin’s glasses.
JARVIS hacks. Finally, with the Mark VI, the AI has the juice it needs to do some more serious war-time jiggery pokery. Now, let’s get this out of the way: There are a LOT of stray bullets in this sequence. And we never would have thought we would write this, but in spite of the further mass casualties, and the absence of physics to account for the mutations load-outs, the look damn cool. We talk stand-ins and lighting, fun zooms, and seriously giant pixels.
