I don’t think a lot of people expected the original Iron Man movie to be any good. Outside of the brilliant casting of Robert Downey Jr. in the title role of Tony Stark, the Marvel comic book movie track record had become tarnished over the past few years with some lukewarm releases at best. Couple that with the hiring of Jon Favreau as director, who was really known more for his comedic acting than directing — the last movie he directed was the tepid Jumanji pseudo sequel, Zathura — and there were some concerns about whether or not this would be another ‘Daredevil‘. Then the movie was released, and it completely obliterated all expectations. It was a colorful, fun movie full of great performances, (mostly) great scripting, and maybe most unexpected of all; great direction from Jon Favreau. I think a lot of people breathed a collective sigh of relief, in that the movie was so well received, and we had the launch of another absolutely solid comic book movie series with Iron Man, a character that I particularly love due to the subject matter, and technology.
With the movie being such a surprise hit, Marvel Studios quickly commissioned a sequel to go into production almost immediately. I’d say the average for these types of things to happen, from pre-production, production, and post-production / advertising is about 3 or so years (maybe more in some cases). Marvel Studios wanted this done in only two years from start to finish, which needless to say is incredibly aggressive. Speaking for myself, just as with the original, I had doubts on whether it could be done. This time, not because of the crew, but because of the studio, and their (more than likely profit driven) decision to rush a sequel into theaters. Luckily, all the original players, with the exception of Terrence Howard, were able to sign on for the sequel immediately, once again under the direction of Jon Favreau. Now, it’s two years later. After the teaser trailer, theatrical trailer, and a multi-million dollar advertising campaign Iron Man 2 has just hit theaters for consumption. Was Jon Favreau, and crew successful at once again surpassing the even loftier expectations set on the sequel for critical, and commercial success? The answer maybe subjective, but in my opinion they’ve succeeded at making another great, and fun movie. However, does it surpass the original, as with a lot of at least recent comic book sequels? In that unfortunately, it does not.
The story picks up after Iron Man, where Tony Stark has revealed his true identity to the world, and over the past six months has secured some sort of semblance of world peace. Tony is reveling in his success, while the government nips at his feet due to what they feel is a security threat with one individual possessing such advanced technology. At the same time, the son of a former parter of Tony’s father (Ivan Vanko, i.e. Whiplash) plots vengeance against Iron Man, for what he feels is a travesty committed by Stark Industries against the world in weapons development, and Tony’s seemingly arrogant attitude. What follows is a two hour romp with: Tony dealing with the company his father founded, his somewhat odd relationship with Pepper Potts, his best friend James Rhodes becoming alienated due to Tony’s behavior (at the same time becoming War Machine), the scrutiny of the S.H.I.E.L.D. organization lead by Nick Fury, competition from Stark Industries rival Justin Hammer, fighting of a slow death brought on by the inherit radioactivity of the power source for the Iron Man suit in his chest, and of course the threat from Ivan Vanko. All of this is certainly a lot to deal with, and it certainly is a multi-faceted plot that completely fills up the two hour running time. Luckily, while other movies have tried this level of complexity (Spider-Man 3) you never really feel bogged down in this movie, as it moves at a fairly good pace with the exception of a little slow patch in the middle. However, that’s not to say this type of a setup isn’t without it’s problems. Iron Man 2 could have benefited from some streamlining, but first let’s talk about what works.
As previously stated cast, and crew from the original Iron Man are mostly back. Robert Downey Jr. continues to entertain the hell out of the audience as Tony Stark, and still continues to be a great, great casting decision for this character. While his performance alone doesn’t solely make these movies (nor should it), it really does bring a credibility to this character, and no matter what the circumstances you want to see Tony Stark, and you want to really see Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow continues to be, in my opinion, a great Pepper Potts as well, in balancing out Tony Stark’s at times brash, play boy attitude throughout the proceedings. They have a sort of great ying-yang relationship, and it’s fun to watch her play off of Robert’s performance. Finally, new to the core staring cast is Don Cheadle in place of Terrance Howard as Lt. Colonel James Rhodes. Don gives a good enough performance with the material he is given, but for continuity’s sake, I’d preferred Terrance Howard in his original role. It’s a shame that Marvel couldn’t work out a deal in time with Howard to get him back for the second film, and I can imagine it might have been a bit confusing for folks to see a different actor in the part (some people might not have even known it was the same person). In the supporting roles we have Mickey Rourke as the primary antagonist, Ivan Vanko. Mickey is certainly capable of delivering a good ‘bad-ass’ performance, and he does well enough — again, with the material he is given — but it falls a bit flat due to the layout of the movie (more on that later). As most of the guys know, Scarlett Johansson is also in this movie as the bad-ass Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow. Her performance is pretty secretive, and tame throughout most of the movie, but when she unleashes towards the end it’s pretty impressive. Her character is worthy of a bit more development, should it come across in future movies. Then we have Sam Rockwell, playing Justin Hammer; our resident prick of the movie. Sam is seemingly a great guy, and in seeing him play suck a whimpy pain in the ass I almost would have rather seen someone else that I didn’t like as much play this part, because I wouldn’t want Sam the actor to come across as an ass. You kind of get a sense of it in the trailer, but in the movie he’s just really a character with no redeeming qualities. Still, Sam does a good job portraying Justin Hammer for what it’s worth, and it’s nice seeing him on screen regardless (note: if you haven’t do so already, go watch Sam in the film ‘Moon‘). Sam Jackson is in here as Nick Fury, but has fairly brief screen time. Sam Jackson is… well… Sam Jackson, except in this movie he sadly doesn’t throw around ‘mofo’ bombs left, and right. Finally, in a smaller role we have Jon Favreau himself back as Tony Stark’s body guard, Happy Hogan. Although the role is small in comparison, he has a lot more screen time this time in Iron Man 2, and it’s great to see him in front of the camera as well.
The rest of the film’s technical aspects are all spot on the money, especially for a such a short time in-between films as previously mentioned. As with Iron Man, Jon Favreau has proven to be a very solid director for this type of film. Retaining a similar look as the first movie, the film continues to be colorful, and full of great camera movement. And also like the first film, while the circumstances Tony Stark finds himself in are dire, there is still an air of fun throughout the movie, so that it doesn’t take itself that seriously (i.e. drunken Iron Man dancing), while not compromising the integrity of the film. The special effects deserve special mention this time around as well, with the awesome suit effects once again being amazing to behold this time around as well. While most special effects heavy movies now-a-days seem to have some shots that just seem terrible in comparison to the rest of the movie, most of the sfx shots in Iron Man 2 seem consistent across the board, and pretty damn good as a body of work. I also dug the score this time around a bit more than in the original. The music in Iron Man had just a little bit too much of tepid Hollywood rock and roll songs (outside of the cuts contributed to the sound track from the likes of Ozzy Osbourne), but in in this movie everything just seems amped up on the audio front, which was a welcome change.
Given that Marvel wanted this movie out in two years, the people involved with this project got a lot right here. This could have easily been a train wreck of a movie, had potentially other people been involved. That said, as hinted at above, this isn’t a film that blows the first one out of the water, as it arguably should have. With all these different plot elements going on you don’t really get a granular attention to detail on each of the respective plot elements. For example, Mickey Rourke I believe had more than enough talent in him to pull off a great Iron Man franchise villain. You can see this within the first few minutes of the movie, with him lamenting over his father. Instead, he’s relegated to two fairly brief fight sequences, and the rest of the time spent in captivity, or behind a computer. He also says very little in the film, and when he does you can barely understand him through a thick imitated Russian accent. It’s really tough to find a reason to sympathize with him, since he’s a potentially good person inadvertently driven to madness by our protagonist (i.e. Alfred Molina in Spider-Man 2). The result of this is Iron Man not having a truly worthy opponent in the film, which is a bit of a let down. Other actors suffer a similar fate due to overcrowding. Characters like Black Widow (Johansson), and Nick Fury (Jackson) aren’t completely fleshed out, so we are left wanting more from them but there simply isn’t enough time in a two hour movie for all of these elements. Not to mention the fact that if you look at each actor in this cast, even the smallest roles are filled with A-list talent.
If the plot was more streamlined then perhaps this, and the individual aspects of the movie not gelling as well as the first film may not have been an issue. Did we really need War Machine in this movie? Well, was it great seeing him team up with Iron Man? Absolutely; it’s geek fodder. Seriously, they were fighting mechs in the middle of a replicated Japanese forest with Cherry Blossoms blooming. If that’s not straight geek porno, I don’t know what is. But then look at the context. In the film War Machine comes together as James Rhodes stealing an older Iron Man suit (that he mysteriously knows how to operate perfectly) after stopping Tony on a drunken torrent in his home during a birthday party, and then delivering it to appease the U.S. government. The suit is subsequently outfitted with all sorts of guns, and presented at an expo with Rhodes piloting. Boom, War machine is ‘born’. Seriously? I would have much rather preferred the original premise from the comic books, where War Machine is born out of necessity after Tony Stark succumbs to alcoholism, which is the ‘Demon in a Bottle’ story; arguably the most powerful of the Iron Man series. I’m not saying that we should have gotten Demon in a Bottle in Iron Man 2 (I’d prefer if they closed the trilogy with that in Iron Man 3), but the story is a bit too spectacular for it’s own good. If the standard running time for a movie was three hours, and the audience could sit through it, then it may have worked out better. It all simply did not come together as well as the first Iron Man did, and it’s a real shame.
In retrospect, despite the issues, the bottom line is if this movie is worth your time, and money. In my opinion, I believe it is. While it wasn’t as ‘good’ as a movie as Iron Man 1, it was certainly as ‘entertaining’ as the first movie. We’ve seen far bigger disasters, especially in the recent trend of comic book to film translations. Honestly, I shouldn’t even be saying the word disaster in this review. It was a great film, if perhaps slightly compromised by a rushed schedule, and also by an incredible expectation from the public for this to be even better than the first movie was. This let down could potentially be what’s affecting the movie being reviewed marginally lower than the first movie, but it is what it is. I feel that Jon, and crew delivered the absolute best movie they could in two years. I’m still relieved that it was this good, as I was hoping for the best, and expecting the worst.
The biggest endorsement I can give a movie is stating that I’m looking forward to the home video release, and such is the case with Iron Man 2. I am also looking forward to Iron Man 3. All parties have already indicated that they’re on board, for a likely 2013 release. Now a lot is happening in-between now and then, with the upcoming Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers films. The impact of these three movies can change the landscape in which Iron Man 3 would take place greatly, but hopefully the crew will have enough time this time to plan accordingly, and I have full confidence that they’ll deliver at the very least a movie worth my time. Jon Favreau has already indicated that Mandarin could very well be the main villain, and there have been also hints that the Demon in a Bottle story could also be addressed as well. Based on what we’ve seen in Iron Man 1 & 2, that’s a lot to took forward to from this franchise in the next film.
Rating:
8/10
