Review: Iron Man 2

#127 - Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 continues the journey of Tony Stark. When we last saw him, he had just announced himself as being Iron Man, and sent the media into a frenzy. This film picks up with the government trying to seize his Iron Man armor for testing and weapons training. There has been a string of peace within the world, and Tony takes full credit for it, so he refuses to hand over his design. That is until a man named Ivan Vanko shows up at a race in Monte Carlo and attacks the drivers. He reveals himself to be the son of a man Tony's father, Howard, used to work with. He vows to get revenge on the Stark family for what they did to his father, and revenge is what he gets. He is hired by Justin Hammer, a competitor of Stark Industries, to create a suit of armor that is just as powerful as Iron Man. Ivan uses the supplies Hammer has given him for his own personal vendetta against Stark, and he creates an army of drones to attack Tony. What Vanko doesn't know is that the arc reactor inside Tony is slowly losing its power. Tony is dying, and he is in desperate need of a new power source. He discovers an element that his father was working on years ago. Tony creates the element and uses it to build a new, high-powered arc reactor. With his new power, and the help of his best friend, Rhodey, he sets out to defeat the drone army and end Ivan Vanko. He not only stops the villain, he also gets the girl. Pepper and Tony finally give in to their feelings, and Tony establishes a stable"ish" (as he calls it) relationship. The film ends with Nick Fury recruiting Tony as a consultant for the Avengers Initiative. We are also introduced to Natasha Romanoff, who goes under the name Natalie Rushman for most of the film. She is the Black Widow, and has been working as Tony's legal aid, so she could keep a watch on him.

This film is my least favorite out of the three Iron Man films, but I did enjoy it this time a lot more than I had the last time I watched it. It's definitely Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko that ruins this film for me. All of the scenes that do not have him in them are great...then he appears on screen again, and I cringe. Mickey Rourke is an awful actor. I'm glad they cast Sam Rockwell to have a beautiful shadow over Rourke during some of the scenes - because Rockwell is a phenomenal actor.

I also love the recasting of Rhodey. Terrence Howard seems like a jerk, and he didn't fit the role of James Rhodes. Don Cheadle has the face of a nice sidekick, and he's also a pretty dang talented guy. He has a better connection with Robert Downey, Jr. than Terrence Howard did.

This movie is interesting to me because it falls right before Thor is introduced into the Marvel Universe. Avengers is gearing up to happen soon as well, so there are little hints dropped throughout the film. Here's one of them:

Coulson is like, "Do you know what this is?!" and he's all excited, and then Tony shoves it under a giant tube to level it out for his experiment. Priceless. Coulson's such a Captain America fan. I'm just trying to understand why Howard Stark would have a half finished shield in his box of things? He created several different shields for Steve Rogers to choose from...that's when he chooses a shield that was not actually one Stark even had up on the table for him to pick. Maybe someone can chime in after reading this blog entry and let me know the answer.

Another little gem in the film that I found interesting was that Howard Stark's "City of the Future" video seems an awful lot like Walt Disney's Florida Project/EPCOT video. Disney acquired Marvel in December of 2009, so it makes me think that this was included on purpose. Some people will argue with that, but whatever. Form your own opinion...

Overall, I give Iron Man 2 - 3.5 out of 5 stars. It had the potential to be even better if Mickey Rourke wasn't plaguing the screen every so often.