Iron Man 2 (2010) Review


Robert Downey Jr. returns as Tony Stark in Iron Man 2, along with director Jon Favreau. However, even with new characters, villains, and conflicts, this one doesn't hit the mark like the first movie. The story begins with Tony Stark enjoying his new role as Iron Man to the world. At first, I was iffy on him revealing his secret identity at the end of the first movie, but now I felt it's a strong bold move. Even though he's caused world peace, a bunch of problems comes his way like the government attempting to get him to sell his iron suit and health issues involving the arc reactor that's supposedly keeping him alive. He keeps this info from Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow) and blindly appoints her the CEO of Stark Industries. At the same time, a Russian man named Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) has been building his own arc reactor and powered suit with electro whips to kill Tony. He is beaten by Tony by is soon recruited by Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a rival of Tony who wants Vanko to help him build powerful drones for the Army, Marine Corp, you name it.

This movie also introduces Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) who first poses as Tony's new assistant and later reveals herself as an agent from SHIELD. Sadly her role wasn't that strong and it felt like her main motive is to just fight and look hot. Thank the Lord that we'd have Joss Whedon and the Russos make her a better character respectively.

My main issue with the movie is how they show Tony's struggle. I don't really get why he doesn't want to open up to Pepper about his health. I don't think it would be that hard for him to say what's happening and then working together to find a solution. But no, we have to show Tony getting hammered and being reckless like his past self and Pepper being cranky about it. Also, the villains are so weak. Mickey Rourke as Vanko or Whiplash has an unclear motivation for going after Tony and just becomes a pawn for Justin Hammer who's an even lamer excuse for an antagonist, being some petty businessman.

The only things that are good, in my opinion, is Don Cheadle replacing Terrance Howard as Rhodey and Samuel L. Jackson returning as Nick Fury and Agent Coulson, too. There's an in-joke with Cheadle making his introduction saying, "I'm here, it's me, so get over it and move on." I think people had little to no problem because Cheadle proves to be more than a worthy replacement, having stronger chemistry with Downey Jr. Also, it's a delight seeing Nick Fury with a slightly bigger role and plus it's Sam L. Jackson, so it's a winner. Same goes for Coulson. There were also some tidbits I found amusing like seeing Olivia Munn as news reporter Chess Roberts who would later play Psylocke in X-Men Apocolypse. You even see a Captain America shield when Tony is working on a machine and he uses it to balance some tubes.

Overall, Iron Man 2 is a very tedious sequel with promising elements that fall flat. Though we got a lot of great superhero sequels in the past decade, Marvel Studio's first try did not really succeed. But they showed that they were not yet low on potential when they revealed a very familiar hammer in the post credit scene.

RATING: MODEST DISFAVOR

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