I fucking loved the first Iron Man movie. Specifically, I loved how it set itself up as a stereotypical white-rich-man v. brown people story, but subverted itself in the end by having the Dude Lebowski as the main villain. I mean, the brown people were still one dimensional personifications evil and fodder for humorous deaths (a guy accidentally shooting himself in the face being played for laughs seemed out of place outside Quentin Tarantino) but… I didn't really care because the rest of it was so damn good.

Here's a summary of the video, if for some reason you can't watch YouTube: We get Tony Stark advocating private military enterprises, Tony Stark getting cock-teased by Gwyneth Paltrow, and then boobs!

Boobs? Check. American Flag? You fucking know it.

In short: Things are going well for Stark Industries.

Then we cut to Mickey Rourke doing an awesomely evil Russian Accent, (the likes of which cry for arbitrary capitalization) while talking about the evils of the Stark Family's past arms dealings -- juxtaposed with a shot of what appears to be Tony's body rejecting his magic heart magnet machine-- and then an exploding race car, Tony bleeding from the face, and…

Heh heh... sweet.

In short: Things aren't going well for Stark Industries anymore.

Cue Rourke laughing ominously so we can dissolve into arbitrary action scenes that culminate in our heroes taking on an army of robots -- which is how all trailers should end, really. In short: There will be action in this movie.

and robots.

Now, I'm pretty skeptical about the whole privatization-of-military thing, especially considering the idea's less than glamorous recent history. (Not to mention the strategies less recent history, which is worse) But I DO like that they're continuing the theme of corrupt arms dealer's owning up for their mistakes -- and that Stark is going to be having issues with his chest-thing. It gets less than a second of screen time, but it's the part you should be most interested in: It adds a new, intrinsic villain in the hero's life: his powers themselves. It's fun to see that trope manifested in a manner other than "man, I don't get enough sleep."

Of course, given how the original Iron Man trailer seemed to set the stage for heroic-white-man-arms dealer-beats-up-hooked-nose-villains tropeyness, I'm hopeful that Stark's ridiculous "I've privatized world peace" comment that starts things off proves to be a strawman for later ideological usurpation. Because it makes for more interesting story-telling, dammit.

It probably wouldn't be fair to judge this movie solely on its geo-political and ideological merits, especially since it's about a guy who dresses up in robot armor to fight other people in robot armor. If they don't fuck that part up, it'll still be a good movie and a worthy successor to the best super-hero flick of 2008.

(Fuck you, The Dark Knight. Giving us the best villain of the decade can't save you from the absurdity of Christian Bale's gravelly bat-speak.)