Review: Iron Man 2

Warning, this review contains spoilers.

To prepare for Iron Man 2, I watched the first movie the day before. I probably shouldn't have, because the second fails to compare in so many ways. I suppose there are more personal activities that are to blame for my criticism, such as reading several books about science and whatnot. The movie just reeked of every sequel where the director was like, "Yo dawg, I heard you liked superheroes," and then proceeded to inundate the story with as much crap as could possibly be contained in their quadrupled budget. Fortunately, Iron Man 2 does one thing sufficiently that other horrible sequels fail miserably at: maintain character integrity. That isn't to say that there aren't off-color moments for the characters, but at least nobody turned emo and had a musical number.

The movie joins Tony Stark as he is basking in the glow of his own celebrity. The extravagance that is on display is quite boring. One review I had previously read stated that the real villain of this movie is Tony Stark himself, which is a great point. Robert Downey Jr exudes none of the charm that made the first movie so entertaining. Every joke falls flat the second time around. The witty banter now seems forced. Though Tony is tormented by a sort of illness that he tries to keep secret, the ensuing tantrums are irritating, not endearing. Now, there are a couple plot devices you can use, as a writer, to make up for the inexcusable behavior of your hero during the first act. Collateral damage is always compelling. Or the loss of powers. Unfortunately, there is none of that. In fact, Iron Man only gets more powerful in the end. There is never any worry.

There are essentially four battles in this movie. The first comes about a third of the way into the movie, which means you have endure THAT MUCH billionaire belligerence before you get to any sort of action. While the first fight between Whiplash and Iron Man is relatively short, its implications are interesting. Actually, the competitive drama between Stark, his competitors, his friends and his enemies is the most intriguing part of this movie. We are introduced to Justin Hammer, played by Sam Rockwell, whose weapons company is a direct competitor to Stark Industries. Rockwell steals most of his scenes, but he also takes a few hefty swings that turn into airy whiffs.

This brings me to the other casting choices. Gwyneth Paltrow returns as Pepper Potts, but her confidence has given way to stammering neurotic stupidity. She wasn't great in the first movie, but now she's annoying. Furthermore, the replacement of Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle for the role of James Rhodes / War Machine is puzzling. Howard brought a certain softness to the role, where you could understand the bond between Rhodes and Stark, whereas Cheadle plays it cold, emotionless and stiff. On the positive side, Mickey Rourke works well with what he was given as Whiplash / Crimson Dynamo. Scarlett Johansson does well enough for Black Widow, but the dramatic faces she makes when its her turn to kick ass are just ridiculous.

Next in my crosshairs is the tech and science department, which one must understandably suspend their knowledge of the real world in order to jive with. Unfortunately, I've been reading a lot of science books lately, and I work in tech. It seems that we can't go for too long without encountering some genius who can hack into any system within seconds of encountering it. That's OK, because if we accept that he can do that, we also accept that he can create software to run and control an army of drones within a few weeks... in addition to actually building that army AND his own suit of armor. Meanwhile, Tony Stark's intelligence starts to look rather mundane. That is until he decides to create an whole new element. That's right, the writers had the audacity to suggest that there was an as-yet undisocvered element that was conveniently the key to all that was ailing our irritating friend Tony Stark. If you hadn't just finished reading a synopsis of strong nuclear forces, you might have let this pass, but I couldn't. Basically, the limitations of strong nuclear forces are the reasons why all the elements at the end of the periodic table are either unstable or theoretical, so to insinuate a whole new element, one that is particularly stable and safe (safer than palladium, at least, which is inert and harmless in reality), is remotely possible is preposterous. I seriously was hoping for a deux ex galactica instead of needless speculative inventions.

Back to my point about compelling action. Nothing is more boring than a fight against unmanned drones, particularly ones who are dead-set on a single target. While some drones unload their fire power on statues, buildings and bushes, it appears that very few of the thousands of people in their line of fire are actually harmed. Certainly, there did not appear to be any deaths, as there were no bodies lying about. There are no hostages, no split decisions, and Iron Man even has the time to save a little boy whose drone attacker takes way too long to recognize as a target. To compound the point, the drones are not even that deadly. They have a few weapons, sure, but at point blank range, surrounding their target, their combined firepower hardly compels Iron Man to use his "one-off" super weapon until after a few minutes of going through the motions of knocking them around.

At the end of this movie, I was relieved to have only paid half price. I don't feel like it progressed the Iron Man story. It was just another episode of a comic book where a bad guy shows up and is swiftly dispatched by a hero that always stays one step ahead. This movie was entertaining, but mostly in the way that complaining is more fun than sitting quiet. At the very least, I am glad that this movie wasn't downright terrible like Spider-Man 3, X-Men 3 or Wolverine. It wasn't great, but I'm not calling for a do-over.