Iron Man 2 - Movie Review

Iron Man 2 (2010)

 

Continuing on with my reviews of the MCU leading up to Black Widow, here's my review of the sequel to Iron Man and the third film in the MCU. Iron Man 2 came out in 2010, with Jon Favreau returning to direct, and Robert Downey Jr. reprising his role as Tony Stark. I'm not gonna bother explaining the plot because if I explain the plot most of my review will be in the intro. Let's get on with the review.

THE GOOD

Alright, here's my opinion on Iron Man 2, this film is just okay enough to be a decent watch. I definitely have some major issues with this movie but let's talk about what I like about it! First of all, Robert Downey Jr. once again is wonderful as Tony Stark! He proves once again that this role was made specifically for him! Don Cheadle is great as Rhodey, much better than Terrance Howard. Some story elements are great, like diving deeper in Tony's story with his father, it was interesting and compelling. There's a couple of great action sequences, the final act is a ton of fun, it was so awesome seeing Iron Man mowing down all these flying robot things, shit is blowing up, it was stuff that was missing throughout the movie. Black Widow is in this movie, this is where she was introduced, and she was fucking badass in this movie, there was a great action sequence involving her in the final act, fuck she kicked so much ass! The visual effects in this movie are wonderful, definitely an improvement over the visuals in The Incredible Hulk. I think for the most part this movie does a fair enough job at giving more of what we liked about the first film.

THE BAD

Now let's get to the issues! This movie is very messy. Why couldn't I explain the plot properly? There's LITERALLY 12 different plot points in this movie. I'm completely serious! You got Tony Stark's declining health, you got the government after Tony's technology, you got Whiplash's revenge plot, Tony's alcoholism, Pepper Potts becoming the CEO of Stark Industries, Tony's public image, Tony's relationship with his father, the jealousy of one of the main villains, the introduction of Black Widow, Rhodey becoming War Machine, another subplot involving Whiplash's revenge this time being hired by the other main villain, and Nick Fury entering the plot because he's concerned about Tony. All of this crammed into a movie that's just over 2 hours. There's far too much going on in this movie, so it's very hard to tell what this movie is really about. Despite Black Widow being really fucking awesome in this movie, you really have to wait for that to happen, because before she becomes that badass you have to deal with her not really having much of a character at all, she's really just in this movie to be hot. This movie has terrible pacing, sometimes they'll really focus on one plotline for an absurd amount of time, while other plotlines are skimmed over and forgotten about. This was actually the result of a terribly rushed production. Apparently Jon Favreau wanted 3 years to make this movie, but Marvel and Paramount Pictures said that he could only have 2 years to make the movie, so because he had less time to finish the movie than he wanted, he had the rush the production process a lot more, and it really showed in the final product. Whiplash was completely wasted as a character, you get this revenge plot with him, one of the 12 plotlines in this movie, and they do NOTHING with it. There's also a terrible lack of action in this movie, I think there's maybe 30 full minutes of action tops in this movie. You get the race track sequence involving Whiplash, which was entertaining enough, but it ends almost as quickly as it starts, you get a VERY brief fight between Tony and Rhodey while Tony is drunk, and the final act, which is by far the best one, until the final confrontation between Iron Man, War Machine and Whiplash. The final confrontation is one of the most disappointing fights in comic book movie history. Not that is was badly executed or anything, it's because it was only 45 SECONDS LONG! Yeah, that's what we wanted to see for a final confrontation, a fight that was less than a minute. I feel like I was bitching a lot about a movie that I don't even hate. This is just coming from a person who expected a lot better from the follow up to one of the best superhero movies of all time.

CONCLUSION

Iron Man 2 is just watchable and enjoyable enough to not be a completely bad film. It's got terrific performances from its cast, a couple of awesome action scenes, fantastic visuals and I found some enjoyment in some of the multiple plotlines. However; this movie is a complete mess, wastes some of its characters and lacks the action we expected to see in the sequel to one of the best superhero movies. It isn't a terrible trainwreck, but it's a major stepdown from the first film.

GRADE:  C+

FILM INFO

MPA rating:  PG-13 (for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, and some language)

Run time:  124 min

Release date:  May 7th, 2010

Studio:  Paramount Pictures

Stay tuned for my reviews of Thor and Saw III coming very soon, and a special review coming soon.