I’ve spent the last twenty minutes or so staring at my computer screen attempting to come up with a riveting opener for this, my IRON MAN 2 review. The good news for my reader is that I gave up; the bad news is that I had tacos for lunch. This is going to be a good review!
If you didn’t see IRON MAN 1: IRON RISES, it was the story of a billionaire playboy named Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.) who builds a robot suit and decides to use it to fight terrorists and Jeff Bridges. Tony’s adventures continue in the sequel as the number of people he battles expands to include a slimy businessman (is there any other kind?) named Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a Russian guy (played by Mickey Rourke) named Ivan (is there any other Russian name), and Congress (played by Garry Shandling). Add that to the fact that Tony is being slowly poisoned by the battery in his chest that is keeping him alive and you’ve got the recipe for trouble with peas.
The movie goes like this; Congress wants the Iron Man suit so they can outfit soldiers with awesome battle armor and such, but Tony doesn’t want to give it up and he says it’s not a big deal because it’ll be years before anyone else can make a robot suit (wisecracking ensues); Ivan shows up with stuff that is similar to Tony’s and wrecks stuff up so Congress is all like “see, it’s all over the place, we want!” Ivan is defeated by Tony, but the slimy businessman wants Ivan to build him robot suits, so he busts him out of prison and puts him to work with minimal supervision (an excellent idea that would never blow-up in his face); all the while Tony is slowly dying and bumming out the audience as he finds ways to give away all his stuff. Then there is a convenient plot device involving his dead father and then there’s a resolution.
Because I (as an American) believe in honesty when not discussing the weight of women, I have to admit that this one wasn’t as good as the first. That’s not to say that it was bad, it was just…kind of mopey. IRON MAN was more light-hearted and inspirational; IRON MAN 2 is only semi-light-hearted and is actually kind of depressing for most of it what with the whole “slowly dying” thing.
But even with Buzz Killington hanging out, Robert Downey Jr. is still great as Tony Stark. He doesn’t have as many awesome lines this time around, but there are still a few gems with his best ones being bounced off of Pepper Potts (a not as annoying Gwyneth Paltrow). I’m not entirely sure why, but I found the Potts character a lot more tolerable this time around, it was weird. Maybe I’m just getting old. Also, Don Cheadle was about a thousand times (mathematically sound) better as James Rhodes than Terrance Howard was. I have nothing against him, but Howard just seems like to nice of a guy to play a hard-assed military man. Cheadle has the look and voice down for roles like this. That was an excellent movie tag-in.
With me being me, I couldn’t sleep tonight (hahahaha…no seriously…BAHAHAHA) if I didn’t mention that the action was solid. My main problem was that there was only three action sequences in the entire movie and they were too short, with the possible exception being the end battle between Iron Man, War Machine, and a bunch of generic-bots. That scene went on a good amount of time, but it consisted mostly of Iron Man flying away and then a 30 second fight with Ivan that was resolved very easily. Honestly, Ivan as a villain was pretty lame. There was not a single time during this movie where I thought he was a threat to Iron Man. I get that they used him as kind of a story device to remind the world that Tony Stark wasn’t invincible, but that doesn’t mean he should be the main bad-guy in a huge super-hero movie.
I’m trying to think of some other interesting things to say about this movie, but I’m just not coming up with much. This seems like a really short review by my standards, but I think I’m spent. Though not as good as the first, IRON MAN 2 is still pretty darn good and is probably worth ten dollars in admission to your local Cineplex
