Review of Iron Man 2 (2010) by Jacob M — 06 Oct 2013

Words can not articulate the wonderful surprise that was the first Iron Man. So much so I nearly over looked the fact that a wonderful new universe had just ignited in the wake of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. Regardless my expectations were high for a follow up.

The Good. Another stellar performance by Downey Jr. as a morose Stark. An interesting dynamic for a plot point. Black Widow. Stellar action.

The Bad. Don Cheadle replacing Terrance Howard. An entire act that is a lag. Two nearly trivial villains. A rehash of the final suit battle from the first installment.

The Good.

I am not ashamed of my outright love of Downey Jr. I find him an excellent actor who's performance guarantees at least one good mark for a film. This is the same in Iron Man 2. Downey Jr. makes the point to assure that Stark is a whiney rich boy afraid to die still trying to do right in the midst of it all. Luckily for us Downey Jr. was the solid foundation for the entire film.

For some reason seeing the previews of the film all I'd gathered for the problem of the story was to be an issue of another villain wielding stark tech. What we got was actually a rather nice twist. The issue of course being mortality and the lack of control in the notion of you after. This was the real antagonist of Iron Man 2. Tony was forced to look death in the eye and realize he had no control over anything. Least of all himself. I hope this plot point is brought up again the villain wasnt truly conquered and I hope it elaborated on.

Black Widow was the greatest addition to this film. The character being a wonderfully intelligent, powerhouse covert agent that had Stark not his armor would surely beat him to a pulp, hell perhaps even with the armor. The character was also a rather potent comedic draw and I can not stress her performance as key to the good of this picture.

If there was a dull moment there was beautifully animated cgi mixed in with master piece suits. There's not too much to elaborate on the action just that it was a nice stroke to the canvas for the story and colors of the Iron Man saga. Iron Man is sleek well orchestrated madness and that is what we recieved in our second installment.

The Bad.

I loved Terrance Howard as Rhodey. I love Don Cheadle as basher. Basher is not Rhodey. What I mean in this tantrum is that Howard owned the role and Cheadle has brought it down. I've read and understood the irritations of Faverau but not only did Faverau himself make an inferior piece as opposed to the first he did the likewise in recasting Rhodey. The two do not even look alike, the entire recasting disrupted the narrative for me.

The wonder of this film is that an entire act of the piece is boring. From right at the conclusion of the race in Morroco to the end of Tony's temper tantrum. It bored me. This is not merely preferance I can and will site numerous reasons for my bore. Improper pacing, it was either horribly slow, jerky or unsure of it's own direction. Hammer and Ivan's comedic capabilities as playing off of one another failed. Ivan's scheming and Hammer's scheming also did not interest me for all it did was take away from the actual antagonist of Tony himself. It's a shame for the beginning has much to give and the final act only makes a slight recovery.

While watching the film I'd one thought, Why? Why are there two villains? I understood the rational in the film itself but one had to be chose over the other for both villains were given inadequate stories and made nearly dull. Had we went with Hammer I'd prefered to see perhaps economic warfare to the tune of robots sabitaging Stark Industries or seen Ivan as more of a terrorist on a crusade against Stark himself. One was not given enough attention and the result was only sub par.

When you watch the final battle in the third act of this film, does the rush of Ivan not remind you of Obediah from the first? Both are destroyed in large explosions after being injured by our hero. This ending and conclusion to the Ivan character was; sloppy, ill placed and a mark down to the character of Ivan. It is lazy to reuse a scene from your first film with new people.

However, despite a poor recasting, a rehash and so on we have a good film. It lacked it's air of discovery because we already discovered the arc reactor, the suit and our secrets. Now we had to rebuild from that. Iron Man 2 was a worthy follow up to Iron Man and another solid entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 6/10.