Iron Man 2 Review

Everybody has bad days. Everybody’s had one of those days where every conceivable thing that can go wrong does, where all the traffic lights turn red just when you get to them, where a little drizzle becomes a torrential downpour as soon as you step outside, where every single bird in the sky drops a big one right on your new coat, where some random guy punches you in the face just because and where you have to wonder what it is about you that makes everything go so consistently wrong. Even Tony Stark has days like that. He has days where new supervillains come to town to destroy his legacy, where the government strives to take his work and livelihood away, where his rival one-ups him, where his friends turn against him and where the very thing that makes him powerful is slowly killing him. Iron Man 2 is an exercise in Murphy’s Law and that’s both to its benefit and its detriment. It aptly creates a scenario where Iron Man is overwhelmed by too many things, too many villains and too many challenges rushing at him all at once; but, unfortunately, it’s also very good at making the audience share his pain.

Don Cheadle as War Machine in Iron Man 2

A second Iron Man for the second Iron Man.

Superhero sequels are interesting anomalies, flying in the face of that old truism that sequels can never surpass their originals. The simple fact is that most superhero movie franchises exhibit their best work in their second installments and not their firsts. The reason is that those same firsts need to detail the origin of their hero and they often regard this task as a burden to be rushed through as quickly as possible. The sequels, relieved of this burden, are able to explore their characters and their world with a great deal more liberty. The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2 stand as strong evidence of this. But the first Iron Man never regarded its origin sequence as a burden. Actually, it embraced it, devoted itself entirely to telling the story of how a billionaire playboy becomes a modern day knight in shining armor. As a result, its sequel isn’t so much liberated, as lost. It bypasses Spider-Man 2 and heads straight into Spider-Man 3, overstuffing itself with two main villains, three superheroes, Nick Fury’s Avengers Initiative, secret family histories, lost dreams of utopian ideals and an army of killer robots. Still, where Spider-Man 3 was essentially three separate movies cut up and spliced together in an ungainly, mishmashed mockery of life, Iron Man 2 is just a tad unfocused.

The story begins – at least thematically – where the first one left off. After the incidents with Iron Monger and the Ten Rings, Tony Stark has become quite paranoid about sharing his technology and refuses to hand his Iron Man suit over to the government. They have little grounds for their claims, of course, as Tony proves that the rest of the world is ten years away from replicating his work. But then a crazy, vengeful Russian guy – Whiplash/Crimson Dynamo (because he’s a little bit of both) – makes his own suit and stages a public attack, in one day decimating all of Tony’s political defenses.

Does it matter that there’s a huge gulf between a harness with a couple of taser cables attached and a full suit of nearly indestructible battle armor with missiles, lasers and rocket boots? Of course it doesn’t. We’re talking about politicians. Reality means nothing to them.

The pressure mounts from all sides, as the military demand answers and Whiplash allies himself with Justin Hammer, a rival arms manufacturer. This, combined with the discovery that Tony’s artificial heart-piece is slowly poisoning him, creates a severe strain in his personal relationships and leads his best friend, James Rhodes, to question if Tony Stark is the right man to wear the armor.

And then there’s that new secretary. Yeah, there’s definitely something up with her.

Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in Iron Man 2.

It's almost like she's a Super-Heroine Involved in Espionage and Lots of Danger.

Okay, so the story is a bit of a conceptual smorgasbord. But what elevates it over Spider-Man 3 is that the different plot threads aren’t stand-alone; they intermingle, motivate and react to each other. Whiplash obviously leads to increased tension in the political story, but his motives also connect him to a subplot involving Tony’s issues with his father, wherein the solution to his poison suit problem is found. Also, Whiplash’s arrival, the involvement of Justin Hammer and the personal stress caused by the poison suit arc all contribute pieces of the puzzle that ultimately reveals War Machine. None of the plots are independent, they all need each other.

But while they do mesh, they never really gel; and several of them have small, but noticeable flaws. The poison suit remedy leaves a lot to be desired. Whiplash’s grievance with Tony is left fairly unexamined and Rhodey’s immediate penchant for controlling his armor is a tad inexplicable. It’s not that there are any plot holes per se – everything really does make sense with a bit of thought – it’s just a few things get lost in the shuffle and certain events can be a bit jarring at first sight. Nothing is particularly underdeveloped, but a few things are left woefully unexplored.