PREFACE: I originally wrote this review to Iron Man 2 back in May when the movie originally came out. However, I was also wrapping up one of my Masters courses at the same time and couldn’t finish the review when it would have been timely. So I just kind of tucked it away for a rainy day.
Considering that Iron Man 2 is now out on DVD and this week’s comic is late due to the fact that we moved into a new home last week, now seem liked a good time to dust it off and post it to the site.
I hope to have a new comic for you later in the week. But hopefully, until then, this review will tide you over. Thanks for your patience and understanding!
I had to watch Iron Man 2 twice before writing this review. As the die-hard Iron Man fan you know me to be, that should cause you some concern.
After watching the film the first time a week ago, I was undoubtedly entertained. But I left the theater questioning if I actually liked the film.
I enjoyed the movie much more the second time through. While it lacks the sense of discover and wonder of the first film, I still appreciate the final product. I like both films. They’re just different from each other.
First, let’s talk about the performances.
It should go without saying that Robert Downey Jr. owns this film six ways from Sunday. His improvisational style is loose, yet hyper-kinetic. You can’t help but watch the guy as he plays Stark as a genius whose mouth can’t keep up with his brain.
Compared to RDJ, however, the rest of the cast looks like stuttering wallpaper. Gwyneth Paltrow tries to match wits as Stark’s Girl Friday – Pepper Pots, but comes of like much more of a pecking hen then she did in the first movie.
Don Cheadle (stepping in for Terrance Howard) as Stark’s friend and confidant James “Rhodey” Rhodes isn’t given much to do except glower and become frustrated by Stark’s antics.
Similarly, Mickey Rourke – who plays the most tan Russian you’ve ever seen, the villain Ivan Vanko – is also curiously mute. His performance is relegated largely to sideways glances, the occasional chuckle and muttered Russian sentences.
Rourke tries to add texture to Vanko by giving him a parrot as a pet and an omnipresent toothpick on which to chew. He has also appeared to have stolen some of Viggo Mortensen’s character research from Eastern Promises, adorning Vanko with a tapestry of Russian prison tattoos. We’re supposed to believe this grimy ball of eccentricities is a brilliant engineer and physicist?
Lastly, Scarlet Johansson – as S.H.I.E.L.D. undercover operative Natasha Romanoff – sucks the life out of nearly every scene she’s in. Is Downey Jr. is 100% charm, Johansson is anti-charm. Like the rest, she’s given very few lines of dialogue, so she spends most of the time trying to pose like a bad-ass while clomping around in knee-high stilettos. It’s as awkward as it sounds
The only performer besides RDJ that looks like he’s having any fun is Sam Rockwell as Stark’s corporate rival, Justin Hammer. It is as if director Jon Favreau instructed Rockwell to do a bad Robert Downey Jr. impression and let him off the chain. He prances, he preens, he makes Hammer look like a wolf in sheep’s clothing trying WAY too hard to sell you something and ALL of it works. I’m curious how much of Rockwell’s performance was improvised considering how much of his performance mirrors Downey Jr. in its tone.
Ultimately, Iron Man 2’s biggest problem is its script by Justin Theroux. If not for the charm and improvisational skills of RDJ and Rockwell, one wonders if the film has anything original to say at all.
Sure, there are plot points that propel the movie forward – the US government wants to Tony to turn over the Iron Man technology, meanwhile, the RT unit in Tony’s chest is killing him. Ivan Vanko wants to avenge his father who once worked with Tony’s father. Pepper is appointed to CEO of Stark Industries and Rhodey steals the Mark II – but the script lacks the connective tissue to form a cohesive experience. Taken in chunks, Iron Man 2 is fascinating. Stitched together? Less so.
I presumed since the first movie was so successful that we might get to see more of the Iron Man armor in action, but that’s not entirely the case.
While the initial confrontation between Tony and Whiplash debuts the awesome suitcase armor, it’s on-screen briefly and is dismantled pretty quick. Fan favorite War Machine makes an appearance, but spends most of it standing around at the Stark Expo. When it DOES launch into action, Rhodey’s not even in control of it! The suit’s programming has been commandeered by Whiplash.
Free of Whiplash’s influence in the final confrontation, War Machine and Iron Man put the smack down on a platoon of robot drones. But this battle is effectively meaningless considering that these are robot drones we’re talking about and there’s nothing really at stake.
By the time Whiplash shows up in a more souped up version of his laser-whip rig, there’s barely any time left in the movie to showcase a proper fight. It’s edited horribly and over way too soon.
Something that any good superhero movie does is give the audience the sense of wonder and discovery of the protagonist discovering their powers. Sam Raimi did an excellent job of this in the first Spider-Man and Favreau did a great job as well in the first Iron Man.
Considering Stark’s penchant for upgrades, it would be very easy to reinsert that sense of wonder and discovery into a sequel – new technology, new features of the armor and so on. While the suitcase armor was a step in the right direction, they didn’t push the concept far enough. The third act feels like a huge step back.
Did I love Iron Man 2? Of course I did. But I’m also a crazed fan.
That said, I’m not so blinded by my undying admiration for the character that I can’t recognize that the film has problems. Whereas the first movie rocketed out of theaters with energy and a sense of purpose that breathed fresh air the super hero genre (“I am Iron Man.” – END CREDITS!), Iron Man 2 stagnates and doesn’t fulfill the promise of the first film.
I actually felt that Rockwell wasn’t given a whole lot to do. I really like Sam and think he’s fantastic, he just seemed really flat in the movie to me, kinda like they told him to model his character after RDJ, but he couldn’t steal the show away from him.
Agree that the ending is kinda just bleh. Doesn’t leave you excited for what’s to come the way the first one did.
Would be interesting to see what the movie would have been like with out the need to set up The Avengers.
I enjoyed the parts that included the armor and robots, Rourke was at least entertaining, and as always, RDJ played a massively masterful performance. It seems very much like they’re making the movie far more about Tony Stark than Iron Man, which is totally fine from a love of story. After the first movie had so little armored action, though, I rather thought they’d up the ante quite a bit more for this one, and show Iron Man doing more heroing. Still, there was more time spent in-suit, and that’s not unwelcome.
I like Sam Rockwell as an actor, but the character of Justin Hammer here was entirely disappointing. In the comics, I seem to recall Hammer having a genius that nearly rivaled Stark’s, but he had absolutely no morals or scruples, as your usual fictional corporate money-monger. In IM2, though, he was entirely inept. Nothing he did or touched worked, and he was so much forced comedy relief that it made me wonder just how in blazes this man ever became a leading weapons manufacturer. In fact, I rather always had this image of Hammer being more like Obie was from the first film. Ruthless, merciless, greedy, and brilliant.
Here’s hoping if they ever bring the character back, they make him less of a cornball.
I see where you’re coming from about Hammer in the comics versus Hammer in the movie. But having an adversary for Stark with a genius-level intellect and no scruples would have pretty much created a Lex Luthor type businessman for him to go toe-to-toe with and that’s kind of boring.
So slap the genius-level intellect on Whiplash – someone with a personal vendetta that doesn’t care about actually DEFEATING Iron Man. He just wants to poke holes in his armor and prove to the rest of the world he’s not invulnerable. That was actually one of the few things the movie did right and alludes to classic Iron Man stories like The Armor Wars, the proliferation of Tony’s incredible technology and how he can’t possibly hope to keep a lid on it forever.
Stark created Iron Man to atone for his sins as a weapons manufacturer. But all forms of technology can be turned into weapons and that’s the delicious irony (no pun) of it.
I dunno, most of Iron Man’s adversaries that have their own sci/tech weapons require a genius-without-morals trope. In fact, there’s a lot of that in hero comics lore, in general. I found Obie to be a really compelling villain from the first film, which I suppose just has to do with the fact that Jeff Bridges can act hard enough to blow up brick walls.
I always though Hammer different from Lex Luthor in that Luthor was always out to gain power, rule the world, or destroy Superman. Hammer did want to make Stark look bad, but the extent of his personal ambitions was just cornering the weapons market, not ruling or governing over anything. Plus, the corporate side of things is central to a lot of Stark’s plot, which means it’s only natural that he have corporate enemies. And it’d be sad to lose one of the greatest foes Stark had from his comic days.
I just want one that doesn’t seem like an evil Jerry Lewis with bad luck.
On the nose. One more superhero movie. I saw it once, and probably won’t buy it. I saw the original 5 times in the theatre and bought the Big Bonus Package when it came out on dvd.
Lots of the movie stagnated, and the supporting cast wasn’t given much to do. The best action sequence in the movie was on the track at Monaco, so all the rest sorta seemed like a letdown, especially the final one with Whiplash’s upgraded suit.
I liked the story line of Ironman has to overcome Tony Stark, but I wish other characters had more to do. But still overall, I enjoyed it enough to buy it.
I was pretty disapointed after leaving the theater. The biggest issue I had with the flick was that almost point for point, the sequel rehashes the first film. Tony and Pepper’s romance? Back to square one suddenly with Tony having to re-impress her all over again. Overarching plot of the film? Another brilliant scientist “steals” the Iron Man technology that lead to building their own hulking Iron Man suit. Tony’s back to being a reckless drunk who more or less cares little to nothing about humanity. He’s got a physical ailment that requires working on the Iron Man suit to fix. He again owes everything to the work his father already did. 1st film, moderately hidden Captain America shield Easter egg. 2nd film, blatant Captain America shield Easter egg.
On top of that, the goofy drunk friend fight and the discovery of the secret “weapon” of having each of them fire their repulsor rays at each other is just hackneyed. That end battle was so anti-climatic. I don’t know, it was just limp overall.
I never really stopped to think how much the plot of Iron Man 2 mirrors the first. It’s not unusual for sequels to do that, of course. It just never occurred to me before!
I totally agree with the drunk friend fight. It seemed so pointless and stupid. The biggest sticking point for me in that exchange was “How did Rhodey power up the Mark II without Tony’s chest RT?” Did Stark give the suits their own internal power source at some point? If so, why wasn’t it explained. Just a little bit of dialogue would have cleared that up and not left me feeling confused at the point I should have been cheering an armor vs. armor throwdown.
I just assumed he powered it up with a spare RT in the Tony’s lab or something.
Ah, but what happens when we assume?
We make an “ass” out of “u” and “me!”
Well, when you see the armor all standing in his garage/workroom, they all have lighted chests which means they have RTs.
Hmmm, I find most of your points pretty spot on.
But honestly, in looking at the whole movie, I just get the feeling of sloppy handling. You’re spot on about the individual components of the movie working well, but the whole thing turning into a chunky disjointed romp. Which is really a shame, considering that it has some of the most versatile and talented actors for this generation, not to mention the budget to let them run wild. I mean, how can you go wrong with Gwenyth Paltrow in a strong female role, Sam Jackson with carte blanche to be the ultimate bad-ass, and Cheadle as the serious buddy he excels at portraying, while Downey Jr uses the movie as a cathartic vehicle for his own life story? And you’re definitely right that Scarelet Johansen seems to serve as little more than geek-bait, a flesh&blood equivalent to the briefcase armor in missed opportunity.
Or maybe she was just one character too many for the movie? After all, you already have Tony/Pepper, Tony/Rhody, Hammer/Vanko, Hammer/Tony, plus the Senator and Fury who serve to set the scenes for the two halves of the movie.
But eh, I have a different feel on Rockwell’s Hammer. I don’t think he’s aping RDJ’s Stark persona so much here as serving as a counterpoint to it. He’s like the ultimate used car salesman, or the mother of all middle-managers; wanting all the notoriety and money, with none of the responsibility and accountability, or the heavy lifting. He definitely has an evil genius about him, but it’s in knowing which ideas to steal and which people to buddy up to, like a conman who’s it it bigger than he ever expected was possible.
Where the movie’s Stark is a mad scientist who wants to do it all alone, wants to create the next big thing, crush through that next technological barrier, simply because he can (oh, and because he needs to flaggelate himself for selling missiles) They certainly play their roles for completely amoral playboys to led theimpression of one following the other in inspiration; but beyond that, they really serve to play off of each other; Hammer with his easy report with contractors, suppliers, clientele, and PR; and Stark with the preternatural ease of creation and innovation, literally writing the future with each new creation. And each loathing the other for their roles.
You’re take on Rockwell and his performance as Justin Hammer was what I was reaching for in my review. Maybe I didn’t articulate the “mirror version of Stark” as well as I should have. But I totally agree with you on your points.