Review of Iron Man 2 (2010) by Andrew M — 10 Sep 2015

OK we finally made it the last of the solo Marvel movies before the Avengers assemble for the first time. Now what Iron Man 2 brought the table, really wasn't much sadly to admit; but we'll get there shortly. Although I see it now as a quasi-necessary to the Marvel Cinematic Universe it feels like a way to spoon feed the audience some quick exposition that has next to no bearing on the overall story. speaking of little side notes who was was the plastic surgeon who turned Colonel Rhodes from Terrence Howard into Don Cheadle? There's the introduction to international super spy, the Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson). Iron Mans 2nd outing is kind of entertaining and enjoyable, but not without its issues and other shortcomings.

The plot has a lot, A LOT, of minor subplots going into buildingbthis bloated story. First there's the subplot where Tony Stark is sort of having a technological dick measuring contest with Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) who can create the best armored suits, but hammer must hire for reasons that no matter how logical they just make him look like an idiot when you hire the main villain Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke)who is the son of Vanko senior who worked under Tony Stark's father Howard and ended up losing his job and drinking himself to death or something like that, little Ivan declares revenge against Tony Stark and the Stark family name by building tentacles that shoot elericity and only apparently get one good action scene before they're almost completely forgotten about. In addition so this sequel can have more in common with the comics I feel like since this is one of the most popular Iron Man story arcs that happened to the character since the 60's is the spiral into Tony Stark's alcoholism and took a few pages out of the "Demon in the Bottle" storyline which is talked about and dealt with without breaking a proverbial sweat. In the end Iron Man 2 although not a terrible movie by any means just seems like the filmmakers just needed to get a little bit more information across to try and build more into the Avengers ensemble piece so this film comes across as an afterthought and the villain is dealt with so easily that it makes you question what made Mickey Rourke a good choice other than talent and star power into a mostly one-dimensional throw-away villain in Whiplash. I was kind of disappointed and with that being said and you know I pretty much stick to my opinion that Iron Man two is the weakest of the phase one Marvel movies. That's mainly the reason I wanted to save it for last because I wanted to get everyone's initial impact out of the way before trying to make Iron Man 2s sour taste go down a little bit easier with the spoon full of sugar that I The Avengers. I recommend Iron Man 2 to anyone who wants to complete their MCU collection. Iron Man 2 gets a 2.3 out of 5.