Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 (2010)

74% On Rotten Tomatoes (out of 210 reviews)

Runtime: 124 minutes

Directed by: John Favreau

Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Mickey Rourke, Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Rockwell

From Paramount/Marvel

I mentioned on my personal profiles (and also a messageboard) late Thursday night after I got back from seeing the doubleheader of Iron Man/Iron Man 2 that I didn’t care for the second one at all, and some people raised some hell about it, but que sera sera, I say. I will at least explain here (without giving away too much of the film) why I rated it the way I did.

The plot was much more busy than the first one. Here, Tony Stark (Downey) has a litany of things to deal with. The contraption that is keeping him alive is also killing him due to blood poisoning-although it doesn’t really affect him physically-, he has a rival (Whiplash, played by Rourke) from Russia whose family has a connection with his family, and Whiplash having similar technology causes problems with Stark and the U.S. Government, who wish to have their own Iron Man suits; that brings in James Rhodes (Cheadle, replacing Terrence Howard). There’s a new assistant for Tony (Scarlett Johansson) as he inexplicably promotes Pepper Potts to CEO of Stark Industries. And, there is Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) who pops up and represents S.H.I.E.L.D. Then, there’s a Stark Expo in New York… see what I mean about it being cluttered?

THE main problem with the movie is the script. Besides there being way too much on the plate, the plot is all over the place and there are way too many obvious plotholes. I mean, for no reason, when Stark is in Monaco he decides to race his own racecar in a Formula 1 contest! That allows for Whiplash to arrive and there’s a big showdown, but it doesn’t make too much sense. You have Tony, confined to his house by S.H.I.E.L.D. and threatened by a goon from the organization that he can’t leave the house until he accomplishes something… easily able to leave his house, with no explanation as to how he got around the goon. It gets way more preposterous than that; with some assistance from Fury, Tony is able to get around the blood poisoning issue, and the steps he took to accomplish this are SO beyond any sort of logical possibility it totally insults your intelligence. Even in a movie-and a comic book/action one like this-there’s no rational way Tony figures out the problem and then sets it up to where the solution happens, especially in the timeframe it takes place in.

Then, there’s Tony being an unlikeable ass for just about all of this, with no real likeable moments from him at all. The entertaining relationship he had with Potts in the first movie is now constant bickering and sniping in this one.

I can’t forget to mention either some rather bizarre lines that aren’t funny at all (apparently, seals eat grapes, and it’s ok to use the phrase “Hammer-hoids”, and in fact it’s supposed to be gut-busting hilarious), and speaking of Hammer, there’s Justin Hammer (Rockwell), a rival to Stark, and it’s no slight to Rockwell as an actor, but the type of sniveling weasel character he played was SO grating and aggravating… he was a villain, sure, but I hated him NOT in a villain way but rather in the wrong way by despising everything about the character and how over the top ridiculous he was… I don’t know if I’ve ever hated a character with such a passion in my entire life, no exaggeration. So of course you see much more of him than you do Whiplash. Poor Rourke (he of a similar career path to Downey; at least like RDJ, he’s experienced recent success), he’s not given much to do, really. Sorry to spoil that, but if you were looking forward to a huge role from him, prepare to be disappointed.

Speaking of disappointing, the action scenes here are more hard to follow than in the first film, and I didn’t really care about most of the action at all. I mean, one big battle takes place at Tony’s estate and it’s scored to songs from DJ AM (who appears in the movie!) and what sounds like songs from the DJ Hero videogame from last year! There’s also a cameo appearance from a political pundit (not Ann Coulter, but close to her) and Lord knows why they thought it’d be a wise idea to have them appear, and it has nothing to do with their or my political views. The only action stuff that was satisfying to me was with Iron Man (who doesn’t appear in that guise all that much, believe it or not; it reminds me of the third Pirates of the Caribbean film, where there’s not a lot of Captain Jack Sparrow; at least here Tony Stark doesn’t spend scenes talking to multiple versions of himself or moving around white stones in a totally white world… what an awful film that was, and I think that’s the last time I got as mad with a movie as I did with this film) vs. Whiplash, but due to various reasons, even that proved to be a letdown. How there are many people giving rave reviews to this movie, I have zero comprehension as to why; even those people that say they liked it despite the story problems deserve a dope slap across the head for having low standards and being so willing to accept substandard product like this.

Oh, there’s way more I could rant and rave about, but then I’d really spoil the film, so I better not. I can say, though, that if you guys didn’t see the after-credits brief clip from the first movie, where Jackson is introduced as being Nick Fury from S.H.I.E.L.D., then you’re SOL here. Even if you saw that and don’t know much about what he or the group is or why you should care about it… well, the movie sure as hell believes that you have vast knowledge of it, which is one of the thousands of mistakes they made. They needed to explain that to the average person in order to note how important it is; I mean, not everyone realizes that Marvel is trying to create a huge movie universe of characters that will come together in a few years for an Avengers movie; speaking of that, I guess you’re not supposed to wonder either where those other heroes, like Hulk, Thor, or Captain America, have been while the world was threatened in the universe of the two Iron Man films. Instead, they go in with the thought that everyone saw the introduction to Fury at the end of the first movie and know everything about S.H.I.E.L.D., and I’m sure that stuff left a lot of people baffled.

So, this was a big letdown, and I’m saddened that the second movie in a row released this year that I was looking forward to proved to be something that many people are creaming their jeans over, but sane people like myself realize that it’s substandard product and with only some work it could have been much much better. This made around 135 million dollars at the box office this weekend, and that leaves me shaking my head.

I’ll be back by the 14th with a new review.