Iron Man 2 Review
Iron Man 2
Directed by: Jon Favreau
Written by: Justin Theroux
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg, John Slattery, Jon Favreau

As successful as most comic book movies have been over the past decade, the first Iron Man flick was definitely not expected to be a gargantuan blockbuster. It ended up being a surprise hit based mainly on the fun factor and Robert Downey Jr.’s performance, but as talk turned to the necessary sequel, many people were wondering what Marvel could do for an encore. Are there really a lot of story options available for a guy who wears a ridiculously powerful and nearly indestructible metal suit?
Of course, it’s the man inside the suit that makes Iron Man interesting, but with all the financial expectations being placed on this film, that human element seems to have been completely overlooked. Apparently Marvel was more concerned with adding big name stars to the cast and connecting the dots to The Avengers movie than creating an exciting and worthwhile successor to the first Iron Man movie. Just when this franchise should have been hitting its stride, it stalls out and slows down a crawl, lending proof to the possibility that maybe Iron Man really isn’t that interesting after all.
When we last left Tony Stark, he had just revealed to the world that he was, in fact, Iron Man. Since then he has become a rock star superhero of sorts, and he has apparently made the world a much safer place. However, the U.S. government is uneasy about one man wielding so much power, and they are trying to lay claim to the technology behind the suit. Enter Russian scientist Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), the son of Tony Stark’s father’s ex-partner, who builds an energy source of his own in order to seek revenge on Tony Stark. He finds an ally in Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a competitor to Stark Industries, and while they team up to build an army of drones, Tony is dealing with the fact that he is slowly being poisoned by his own arc reactor.
The biggest and most obvious problem with Iron Man 2 is that it has serious pacing issues. I’m normally not the kind of guy to count action scenes, but there are literally three of them, the first coming a good half-hour into the film. The vast majority of the action arrives at the tail end of the film, which might not have been such a big deal if all the plot leading up to it wasn’t so dull. There really is not much driving this movie forward. Iron Man 2 can be best summed up as the story of two scientists who spend two hours building stuff in their separate workshops so they can fight each other for the final 5 or 10 minutes. It does end fairly strong, but the suit vs. suit CGI battles somehow never feel as thrilling as they should. The only respite from this is Scarlett Johansson’s few minutes of screen time in full-on Black Widow ass-kicking mode.

Director Jon Favreau attempts to carry this film with a lot of dialogue-driven scenes, and although that was definitely a strength of the first Iron Man movie, Robert Downey Jr.’s one-liners do not quite click this time around. So much of this movie feels like it is coasting on Tony Stark’s cockiness, but that only works when we have a reason to root for him. This time around he just feels like an asshole. The movie tries to create drama by exploring Tony Stark’s mortality and his strained relationships with Rhodey and Pepper (as well as, I guess, his father) but none of these elements really come together in any meaningful way.
Although they’ve always said that they’ll never deal with Tony Stark’s alcoholism in the movies, they sort of come close here with his dangerous and erratic behaviour that results from blood toxicity levels and depression. Unfortunately, this also proves why it is probably best that they don’t address his alcoholism on screen, because it all ends up becoming a bit of a joke. The scene where he shows up to his birthday party wearing the Iron Man suit, leading to a tussle with Rhodey, is a bit of a disaster, and once Samuel L. Jackson enters the picture as Nick Fury, it almost starts to feel like a sitcom. I guess it’s not that surprising considering that the script was written by Tropic Thunder screenwriter Justin Theroux.
Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer is one of the few bright spots of the film, bringing just the right balance of sliminess and comic relief, as well as Jon Favreau in a slightly expanded role as Stark’s personal assistant Happy Hogan. Mad Men‘s John Slattery has a decent (albeit brief) appearance as Tony’s father Howard Stark, but both Don Cheadle and Mickey Rourke are severely underused. In fact, Rourke barely has any lines of dialogue at all, and never feels truly fleshed out as a villain.
The science-fiction of Iron Man 2 is also lazy and lame, but that’s really the least of its worries. In the end, I just don’t think there is a compelling story here, instead it is a series of scenes that provide all these new characters with an excuse to interact with each other. This is a flaw that many comic book movie sequels suffer from, but at least they usually make up for it by amping up the special effects and delivering memorable action set pieces. Iron Man 2 does not really do that either. Yes, it is a disappointment on a lot of levels, but given what there was to work with, perhaps the outcome was inevitable. Will we see a third Iron Man film? The story certainly doesn’t seem particularly interested in preparing us for that, but hopefully we can at least look forward to Tony Stark surrounding himself with a few more interesting characters in The Avengers movie. — Sean
SCORE: 
Recommended If You Like: Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, X-Men Origins: Wolverine




































































