While It's Not the Original, Iron Man 2 Proves to Be A Heck of a Lot of Fun

As it may sound, the plot does significantly suffer from an over-stuffed plot, the occasional “Spiderman 3″ syndrome rearing it’s ugly head. Once you look at it from the particular perspective earlier mentioned of “all about the suit” it’s easier to understand. However, the script and the story has some serious trouble getting the plot to its end product during the first 1/2 of the movie. After it gets past it’s disjointed storytelling and gets all the characters past their beginning arc and in the right position, things get back into their stride and comfortable again. While the first half at times felt like a different movie in terms of charm from Iron Man 1, in the second half the familiarity kicks right back in and that realistic snark the original movie had makes it great. Iron Man 2 has a great notion of fully satisfying its audience with some great visuals, humor, and action, but really it never does hit that full potential it could have with a little bit of a smoother plot. There’s a great story lying in there, what with Justin Hammer’s interesting knack and the Avengers story lying overlying presence through the story, but I, among others, am more than satisfied with the ambitious yet sometimes flawed story we ended up with. If there’s a great thing Favreau knows how to do with his films, it is crafting some awe-inspiring shots of action. So many directors focus on shaky cams, realism, or set pieces, and while all of those are great in Cameron’s, Abram’s, and Mann’s pictures, Favreau proves he’s a master of simple yet elegantly awesome action pieces thankfully with no regard for preserving orderliness. It’s like a ballet of fire and monster trucks. Every action piece isn’t afraid to be ridiculous, and each is an insane amount of fun. I continue to be a fan of the brilliant way Favreau keeps Iron Man and others in suits human by showing us their faces inside the helmet during battles. Scenes like the reveal of Black Widow’s amazing butt-kickery, the opening freefall set to “Shoot to Thrill”,  and the final robot-on-robot-on-robot soaring flight and land battle really stand out, and keep audiences like mine in that purest state of wonder only films like this can produce. The story doesn’t make huge improvements over the first, but one thing this sequel does well, as all sequels should, is expanding the scale to inspiring new levels. Iron Man 2 also surrounds itself with some outstanding leads. Mickey Rourke pitches an awesome set with what he has to channel an amazing Russian avenger that steps outside the expected, and Downey Jr. chimes in with another applause worthy perfect Tony Stark rendition. Paltrow and Johannsen are both serviceable in their parts, but Rockwell is the star of the show. His charisma, sarcasm, and the way he plays off Stark is brilliant, and makes the movie that much more enjoyable. He’s the perfect villain for the movie, there’s simply no better. Don Cheadle has a stint taking the place of Terence Howard as James Rhodes who later becomes War Machine. Cheadle does some great work in the movie, and although I was hesitant at first, by the end of the movie there was no better decision. It was also really nice to see Jon Favreau himself as an even bigger character in Happy Hogan’s spot in the movie, even getting to fight in a fewhilarious scenes. Everyone just channels their parts to near perfection. Also, all of the brief, peppered hints involving the upcoming Avengers film did exactly what they were supposed to do, and were a lot of fun to watch for comic nerds as Hulk, Captain America, and Thor references became increasingly fun to see as time went on. Iron Man 2 is an interesting creature. It perfects the scale needed for this sort of movie, ratcheting truly awesome action and near-perfect casting, but it’s necessary to admit it does have some flaws when it comes to telling the story in the best, clearest way possible. I love being able to say Iron Man 2 is everything we hoped it would be. As I said earlier, Iron Man 2 doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but while it’s demolishing that wheel it sure as heck is fun to watch, and it’s setting the bar even higher for action and superhero films to come.