At the movies, summer has traditionally been a season for numbered sequels and for films about superheroes. Or both at once, preferably. Clearly, then, there was no better time for L.A. filmmaker Aaron “VFX Bro” Benitez to do a follow-up to his 2015 short Iron Cat. In that film, for the uninitiated, a house cat named Prince Michael is inspired to create his own Tony Stark-like flying suit after being taunted by some smart-aleck birds in serious need of an attitude adjustment. It’s a classic Marvel-style origin story, only no one is orphaned this time around, and there’s no gamma radiation to speak of. It’s just a cat reading up on flight and then, after some experimentation, building an airborne suit of armor (out of cardboard, duct tape, glue, baby shoes, and a couple of steam irons) in a suburban garage. Typical. In addition to being a delightful vignette about animals doing people stuff (or super-people stuff), Iron Cat is also a demonstration of Benitez’s special effects prowess.
That was fine for 2015, but now it’s a new year. It’s time to give Prince Michael an assignment worthy of his talents. The newly released Iron Cat 2, about a minute long, like its predecessor, does just that. After getting a distress call on his Apple watch, the title character suits up and flies off to rescue a cat who is stuck in a tree. Again, this calls for some of Benitez’s patented visual-effects wizardry. Once he arrives on the scene of the crisis, Prince Michael manages to rescue his fellow feline in a manner that is both unexpected and highly effective. From there, it’s just a matter of coolly walking away from a fireball while “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath roars in the background. As that Lonely Island song puts it, “Cool Guys Don’t Look At Explosions.” Yeah? Well, cool cats don’t either.
[via Laughing Squid]