Movie Review: Iron Man 2

05/1/10

Iron Man 2

Sequels seem to be something that Hollywood has never been too good at. Sure there are the exceptions (Empire Strikes Back, Spider-man), but once the studio heads have seen that franchise potential, they don’t want to risk anything. As a result, sequels become more of the same, but with MORE.

A case in point would be Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. More T&A, more big robots, more explosions. A second example woudl be Spider-Man 3; more villians. more fights. More damsels in distress.

It’s this mentality that really annoys me when it comes to movies, especially genre films. I was especially aprehensive about Iron Man 2, since I think Favreau’s first Iron Man was probably the best adaptation of a comic book EVER. It is one of the few original DVDs I own and one I re-watch on a regular basis.

Trailers of the sequel were very… flashy. They had that WOW! TOTALLY AWESOME thing going for them. Usually when that happens, the film itself falls flat for me. All the pre-release hype ups that level of expectation and when you finally see the film, it can’t possibly live up to what you pictured in your head.

Thankfully, I surround myself with people who are much geekier and more obsessed than I am. These guys went and watched the premiere and told me that it wasn’t all that. My inner awesome-o-meter went from TOTTALLY AWESOME! to REALLY? NO WAY? just like that. That effectively killed the hype. When I went to see it, I was going in as a normal person who hadn’t been jacked into the months and months of news and reports about the movie. Just some fan of the first one, wanting to see if the second one was any good.

This is what it must have been like back when they had drive-in movie theaters.

While Iron Man 2 isn’t the unbelievably great flick that Iron Man 1 was, it is a great way to kill 2 hours. I think Favreau was able to keep that studio mentality at bay for the most part, since much of this chapter is focused on dialogue. I mean, it’s a whole 40 or 50 minutes before Iron Man sees any action.

The movie’s mainly about Tony Stark’s life after reavealing that he’s Iron Man, how it affects his relationships with the government, with his assistant, Pepper Potts, and with his best friend, James Rhodes. Naturally, he’s even more of a celebrity than he was as the CEO of Stark Industries. His high profile lifestyle begins to irk the government and enemies start to surface.

The main ones here are Justin Hammer, the CEO of a rival Arms Manufacturer, and Ivan Vanko, son of Tony’s father’s former partner, who is also a brilliant physicist.

Even though that’s a lot to set up, The cast and crew did a great job of keeping you engaged. Personally, I could watch Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow for hours. Both of them bring that conviction to their roles that makes you believe that they’re real people, not just 1-dementional cut-outs from a comic. Put them together with Mickey Rourke (Vanko), Sam Rockwell (Hammer), and Don Cheadle (Rhodes) and I was convinced that this is going to be added to that DVD collection as soon as they can throw together some extras and commentary.

The only low points for me were Samuel L. Jackson as SHEILD Director, Nick Fury, and Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow). While Jackson is a fine actor, he didn’t do a lot to really distinguish Fury as a character seperate from any of the other dozens of badass mofos that he’s played in the other dozens of films he’s been in. He’s the same guy you saw in Die Hard With a Vengeance or Pulp Fiction… just not as glib. Now if they had given him a scene like he had in Deep Blue Sea, that would have rocked.

Johansson… what can I say? She looks great in that black skin tight suit. All the shots of her butt and cleavage? Two thumbs up! I was glued to my seat watching her kick the ass of an entire building’s security force, but whenever she has dialogue in her scenes, it falls flat. She is protraying a superhero whose codename is Black Widow. You’d expect her to have some kind of screen presence. That said, I’d still totally pay to see a Black Widow movie with her in the title role.

I am a shallow bastard, I know.

In the end, I feel that Iron Man 2 is really a bridging movie. The first really was a powerful introduction to the Iron Man universe, and this second is more about establishing the character and the supporting cast. There’s a lot less action in this one (contrary to what you see in the trailer), but you know it’s building to something (either a third movie or the eventual Avengers movie).

Besides Johansson, the thing that really stole the show was the armor. We get 4 more Iron Man armors from the film, the Mark IV which Tony built after the Mark III was totalled at the end of the first movie, the Mark V, which is that suitcase you see in the trailer (how cool is that by the way?), and the Mark VI, which naturally comes after the Mark V. Aside from that, there’s also the Variable Threat Response Battle Suit, which Rhodey finally gets to wear. It is a thing of beauty. I want to have this suit’s children.

I sincerely hope this isn’t the end of the Iron Man franchise since it is my second favorite comic movie franchise (the first is Hellboy). Jon Favreau is fast becoming one of my favorite directors, right up there with Del Torro, Jackson, Proyas, etc. He’s the right blend of funny and serious, and he knows how to be reverent to the source material without corrupting it.

Here’s hoping Joss Whedon’s Avengers and Kenneth Branagh Thor turns out just as great. After all, more of the same is pretty great when the original is totally, stupefyingly cool.

 

 

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