Iron Man 2 (Review)

The first Iron Man was part of the superhero movie year of dreams: 2008. This was the year that also brought us The Dark Knight, which is far and away the best superhero movie I’ve ever seen. Second place will probably be an eternal struggle between Spider-Man 2 and the first Iron Man. So, needless to say for me expectations for Iron Man 2 were pretty goshdarn high.

I ended up leaving the sequel mostly satisfied. I had some problems, most of which were found within a 10 minute stretch in the midst of the film, but overall you could not have asked for much more from a sequel. Robert Downey Jr. is terrific (duh), and the cast around him is mostly superb, with a performance from Sam Rockwell that nearly takes the movie from Downey Jr.’s hands.

The film begins in Russia (it’s cold, that’s how we can tell) with the death of Anton Venko, a former associate of Tony Stark’s father Howard who feels a great deal of animosity towards the Stark family. Venko’s son Ivan vows revenge, because that’s what people do in movies, and begins creating a machine which could finally vanquish Iron Man and Tony Stark.

Stark, meanwhile, is the biggest celebrity on the face of the Earth. He has created a machine which has successfully kept the world in a state of peace the likes of which has not been seen in modern history. He has founded the Stark Expo, an obvious nod to Disney’s EPCOT, to celebrate his awesomeness. However, the technology that makes him Iron Man is also killing him, and he knows he has very little time to live. This is compounded by the fact that Ivan Venko nearly tears him apart in front of the entire world on a racetrack in France.

This depression causes a whole lot of drinking on the part of Mr. Stark, and this leads to the film’s most regrettable sequence, involving Stark, in full Iron Man garb, DJ’ing at his birthday party with the now-deceased DJ AM. Don Cheadle as Col. Rhodes (replacing Terrance Howard) comes over, suits up, and has an Iron Man suit fistfight that goes throughout the Stark mansion. This is a waste of time and resources as far as the movie is concerned, and the special effects could have been utilized in an actual action sequence. It might be an important moment as far as character is concerned, but there HAS to be a better way of doing it.

Really, that is the only scene that borders on ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean the film doesn’t get a little too close for comfort. Director Jon Favreau had a role in the first film as Happy, Tony Stark’s limo driver. He has the same role here, only he does a lot more, including a scene near the end involving dumb fistfight. In fact, this movie goes for a few too many laughs when it should be more serious, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work.

Now to what I REALLY liked. The foremost of these is Sam Rockwell, who goes over-the-top in the best way possible as the main opponent of Stark Industries, Justin Hammer. He is the enabler of Ivan Venko, whom he commissions to make a new Iron Man suit. I wish there were more scenes between Hammer and Stark, and I hope there are future films that feature both Rockwell and Downey Jr. together. Also, for the most part, the movie avoids action overload which is a popular disease amongst sequels of all kinds.

In fact, both Iron Man movies have some of the best dialogue ever found in the genre, this time courtesy of screenwriter Justin Theroux, who co-wrote “Tropic Thunder” two years ago with Ben Stiller and Etan Cohen. But in the end I have to give a whole lot of the credit to Jon Favreau, who besides acting in various mediocre (at best) comedies has directed some quite good mainstream films over the years, including Elf, one of Will Ferrell’s best.

Scarlett Johansson also shows up as Tony Stark’s new assistant once he hands the business over to Gwenyth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts. For most of the movie when Paltrow is in frame, so is Johansson. You spend most of the movie without a female in frame, but when they both show up it is sensory overload.

Iron Man 2 is the shallower of the two films, to be sure. Where there was more of an emotional conflict within Stark’s character in the first one, the internal conflict here is mostly contrived and we all know where it would eventually go. However, Stark is still an incredibly interesting character, and Downey Jr. sells it all. In fact, the best parts of the movie occur when no one is wearing a suit.

This is the movie that kicks off the summer season, and it is a perfectly good starting point. This movie is not as good as the first (duh times two) but it does a good enough job that I was thoroughly intrigued from start to finish, and most of that credit goes to the actors, as well as Jon Favreau, who needs to keep doing more directorial work.

Rating: (out of 4)