Marvel Month - Mini Review: Iron Man 2

Well, Iron Man 1 was a success, so a sequel was inevitable. Iron Man 2 came out in 2010 to critical acclaim at the time, however looking back on it people’s tastes seem to have soured towards it. Still it made $623m on a $200m budget so it was successful enough for Marvel as they continued to build momentum towards the Avengers. Here’s how I see it

 Tony Stark has been facing issues since the end of the first movie. Government wants full access to what they consider to be a weapon, various villainous forces are trying to replicate the suit and the core of the arc reactor is slowly(ish) killing him. His decisions in the movie, trying to live life to the fullest seem irrational to everyone around him, particularly Pepper Potts.

But when Whiplash comes onto the scene with a fully functional arc reactor, James Rhodes decides to take decisive action, unknowingly making a complex situation far more complicated as Whiplash capitalises on his quest for revenge.

OK, positives, Robert Downey Jr still kills it as Tony Stark, the acting all round is still good…. It looks good, from a visual standpoint and some of the drama is compelling, I didn’t fall asleep or anything and… I think I’m out of positives.

Right, let’s start with the whole Tony Stark is dying subplot. It’s clearly an effort to keep him out of the Iron Man suit for the majority of the movie. There is only 3 minutes of Iron Man action before the climax (source: ScreenJunkies) so we get to see him get drunk a lot, act like an ass, flirt with Black Widow (and we’ll get to her) and get into a fight with his best friend because he’s unable to talk in clear sentences. To fix this, he needs to find a new core for his arc reactor. 

Nick Fury apparently knows it exists somehow (oh yeah, he’s in this movie, 5 minutes tops) and solves it thanks to an Easter Egg from his father that’s uncovered via holograms, describing the chemical makeup of an “impossible to synthesise” element. Tony synthesises it immediately afterwards. A couple of extra words could’ve saved this. “nearly impossible to synthesise” or “impossible to synthesise with current equipment” ANYTHING!

Also, him not telling Pepper. I get it from a personal standpoint, he doesn’t want to admit that he’s dying because admitting it to her would be like admitting it to himself but what comes of this? A joke, I think, after he cures himself. That was pointless.

So, the US government wants to seize the Iron Man suit and forces Stark through hearings and news broadcasts and I’m bored. Eventually they send Rhodey to do it. Surely a court order, anything that would make this legal should’ve been considered but nope. How do I know they didn’t do this? Pepper literally describes it as ‘an illegal seizure of trademarked property.’ This eventually leads to the debut of War Machine, ok, I dig that.

So, Justin Hammer, there’s next to nothing to his character. It’s implied that the two are friends, but Stark humiliated him in an early scene by showing his first attempt to create an Iron Man suit being a colossal failure. I don’t really get it. Jealousy is rarely an interesting motivation because it’s so one-note and that’s honestly what Justin Hammer ends up being: one-note

Sadly the same can be said for Whiplash. His father, who also worked on the arc reactor, was exiled by Tony Stark for… something and he ended up growing up in hostile conditions. Not really sure why whips was the first thing that came to his mind but f*ck it, I don’t care, he gives me no reason to be interested. His repertoire with Hammer should’ve been something but no… He wants a bird and kills some guards, that’s about it.

Oh yeah, there’s Black Widow. She’s in this movie. She kicks some ass. Moving on. Coulson is really pointless in this movie. He’s there for 5 minutes, fails at his job and then has to leave to be in Thor. I’m so interested.

I understand what this movie was trying to aim for and it succeeds in some ways, generally around Tony’s character arc, but with the backstory out of the way, there needed to be more Iron Man action and less of everything else really. Generic villains and subplots don’t elevate the movie beyond mediocre.

Rating 55/100