Iron Man 2 starts off just a few months after Iron Man finishes. Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.) has come out of the closet as Iron Man and has 'successfully privatized world peace.' The world loves him; the government hates him; and weapon-manufacturers are jealous of him. Across the world in Russia a man by the name of Vanko and former partner of Tony's father passes away in poverty after being cast out of America as a spy; he however possesses an advanced formula of the Iron Man suit as he helped design it. His son, Ivan Vanko (played by Mickey Rourke), takes the plans, builds his own Iron Man suit (Whiplash) and plots his revenge on Tony Stark for the desecration of the Vanko family name. Tony, however, is suffering from a problem himself, his suit is releasing palladium into his body slowly killing him, which pushes him away from the lovely Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), his best friend Lt. Col. Roads (Don Cheadle), and his new associates Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Acting as a one-man show Tony must save himself, and the world from the likes of ultra-jealous weapon manufacturer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) and the likes of the ultra-evil Ivan 'Whiplash' Vanko.
First off I must say that the acting is phenomenal. Mickey Rourke, almost silent throughout the film, plays the perfect superhero villain and Sam Rockwell nearly steals the show as Justin Hammer of Hammer Industries. And leading lady Pepper Potts got pushed aside for Scarlett Johansson's portrayal of the super-sexy Natalie Rushman ("Black Widow"). Don Cheadle on the other hand walked around looking embarrassed to have stolen best friend Terrance Howard's role. And as for Robert Downey Jr., this is where he shines. No other role was suited for him like the role of Tony Stark.
Let's talk about the movie itself, it's not perfect, far from it. A lot of the middle part of the movie is anti-climatic showing Tony Stark slaving away by himself in his lab to create a machine to save himself and then it compares to Ivan Vanko sitting in a lab preparing his army of drones/creating his new-and-improved Whiplash suit to destroy Tony Stark. The movie started off very strong with an epic battle between Iron Man and Whiplash and quickly faded away to more of a personal drama for both before an epic battle at the end, culminating with a rather weak showdown between Whiplash and Iron Man and The War Machine. And that is the only part of where the movie fails. It starts off with a great big boom, and becomes very anticlimatic quickly; but at the same time; it's not an anti-climatic atmosphere that is necessarily a negative one - it's just how the film worked out.
I liked the film; and so did the crowd at the screening. A lot of people cheered throughout the film and loved the scene after the credits. The movie was also funny, which was a nice change. The Dark Knight, X:2, Spiderman 2 and other sequels (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen excluded) tried to move away from comedy and focus more on a serious darker nature. I feel that Iron Man 2 was able to hit a darker level while staying rather funny. I was also impressed with how clever John Favreau's (the director's) cameo's were. They were quick, but frequent, and entertaining enough for the audience to enjoy them. He made a very good follow up to his smash hit Iron Man.
I am very excited to see what Iron Man 3 and The Avengers Initiative bring us and hope that John Favreau manages to stay attached. Ultimately this is a fun summer blockbuster and I highly recommend it!
3.5 out of 5 stars
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