Iron Man 2 (2010)

Directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Chef)

Written by Justin Theroux (Tropic Thunder, Zoolander 2)

Whenever I watch this movie, I feel like I live in Bizarroland, because all of my friends like it pretty well. I just don’t see it. There are definitely some good elements to this movie, but it just doesn’t come together for me. I feel like, ultimately, the reason some people like this movie more than me is that almost everything the movie does is a good idea. It’s filled with huge levels of potential for the characters and the story. It just happens to be executed extremely poorly. The sequel finds a recently-revealed-as-Iron-Man Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr., again excellent) dealing with his father’s legacy and the fallout of his surprise declaration to the world. This time around there’s a bigger role for Rhodey (Don Cheadle this time), and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is CEO of Stark Industries. The cast is further expanded (one might say bloated) by the addition of a bigger role for Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), his superspy agent Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johansson), and a new pair of villains in arms manufacturer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) and Russian genius Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke).

The biggest problem with Iron Man 2 is that almost every nice thing that I can say about it comes with some kind of caveat. I love the character of Tony Stark, but I’m frustrated that he seems to have taken multiple character steps backwards between movies. He starts the movie off nearly intolerably smarmy and unpleasant despite appearing to have made progress towards being a better person last time around. I love the new villain and his motivation, but he’s taken out like an absolute chump at the end. Seriously, I timed it, and from him showing up for the final showdown to lying defeated is less than two minutes. It’s ridiculous. All of the bombast of the ending is reserved for the Achilles’ Heel of the MCU–mooks. A bunch of worthless, unmanned, non-threatening drones that take up a much meatier 12 to 14 minutes of finale (depending on where you start). I love Black Widow’s introduction to the MCU, but her character is completely superfluous to the plot of the movie (and may even harm it from a writing standpoint). She makes it so that Pepper has nothing to do in the finale, and also serves as a Deus ex machina that artificially ends the only interesting part of that finale. Having to fight your best friend without hurting him is a fascinating idea for a fight, but Natasha just clicks a couple of buttons and everything’s fine. Every single thing I like about the movie seems to have also caused a problem in it.

It’s not all bad, though. Like last time, the beginning is surprisingly effective (and I don’t even really have a caveat for that one). The build up to the fight at the Monaco Speedway is interesting and engaging, and the introduction of Vanko as a dark reflection of Stark works really well at hearkening back to the elbow grease Tony displayed in the first half hour of the previous film. Sam Rockwell is as fantastic as he always is (very), and Mickey Rourke is captivating despite an occasionally dodgy accent. All of the ingredients for a great movie are here: they stacked the cast with experts, they expanded upon the universe of the first movie, and they introduced new conflicts for most of the major characters. It just doesn’t cohere into a working film for me. It somehow feels both over- and under-written, too. I love the idea of a conflict between Stark and Rhodey, but there’s no emotional punch to the ending. The first fight between the two in the mansion is better than the final fight, and that’s never a good thing in an action movie. You don’t want to peak early. I also feel no real sense of threat from anything in the movie. A good film will make you feel something for the characters even though you know the good guys are going to win. Where’s the sense of collateral damage in the destruction of the park? Where’s the sense of a friendship actually pushed to the breaking point? Where’s the cost for Tony Stark?

I think that may be the most significant thematic problem the movie has, actually. There are never any real consequences for Tony Stark. He loses nothing, sacrifices nothing. He gets it all, so all of the conflict seems unimportant or meaningless. He drives away Pepper, but he gets her in the end for seemingly no reason. He breaks his oldest friendship, but in the end the movie seems to be saying that he was in the right to do so! Rhodey is the one who looks like a gullible fool for following orders and trying to stop Tony from being a child. Stark’s family history comes back to haunt him in the form of Vanko, but there’s no actual cost to him. I mean, yeah, a park is destroyed, but we are very clearly told that money is nothing to Stark, and the movie goes to great lengths to show collateral damage exclusively to property. It’s the same issue that the two Sony-produced Amazing Spider-Man films had. The script seems to keep telling us that things are weighty and have consequence, but we just don’t see it. I’m not asking for a grimdark DCEU misery-fest, but actions need to have weight for the viewer to be invested in what’s going on up on the screen. Again, this movie is far from terrible. It’s an entertaining, passable distraction. But it really has no heart. There’s nothing beneath the surface flash and zoom. This movie frustrates me because I want it to be better. I want it to make me really feel for the personal struggle of Stark, but I’ll have to wait a little longer for that.

Overall:

Stray Thoughts:

• It seems to me that they couldn’t decide between alcoholism and the blood toxicity thing, so they did both. They should have done one and stuck with it. Each is kind of detracted from by the other.
• Lightning whips are cool weapons. A briefcase suit is also cool. This movie has cool things in it.
• Who still uses right-to-left wipes? They are weirdly distracting edits.
• Don Cheadle > Terrence Howard.
• Mickey Rourke drinks straight vodka like he’s been doing it for years!
• Post-credits scene: Perfectly acceptable. They’re still in the mode where they’re just teasing the next movie down the line, but that’s OK.
• Stan Lee cameo: Funnier than last time, but still falls short of the brilliance that was Iron Man‘s.