Iron Man 2 (2010) Review

Iron Man 2 is the third entry in Marvel´s Cinematic Universe and a direct follow up to 2008s Iron Man. The film picks up about six months after the end of the first film, where Tony Stark revealed to the world the he is Iron Man. The Us government have now decided that Tony Stark should hand over the “Iron Man Weapon” to the government as it is something they should control for the safety of the nation. Stark tells them that Iron will not work without him and convinces them that it will be at least another 5 to 10 years before anyone else will figure out his technology and so they have nothing to worry about. Too bad then, that Ivan Vanko all of a sudden shows up having managed to replicate Stark´s miniature arc reactor technology.

Ivan Vanko is actually a really great villain, mostly because of a pretty good performance from Mickey Rourke. He has a really great presence and in almost every scene it seems like he has total control no matter what is going on. The problem is that he is a bit underused in my opinion; he has two great fights with Iron Man using electrical whips, in quite exciting, but they both feel like they were way too short. I´m not the person who necessarily need long action scenes, but if they are short it never manages to build suspense. That being said I equally enjoyed the plain talking scene with Ivan Vanko, however it never became that clear what he was hoping to accomplish. It was clear early on that he had a grudge against the Stark family and he wanted to hurt them, but the way he was trying to do it never quite made sense for me.

Robert Downey Jr. was of course great again as Tony Stark. Problem is that Tony Stark started not being likable here as they started exploring his character more. He became more and more of dick during the movie and I can partly understand why he does it, but it made it hard for us to sympathize, something that was crucial for this film. We learn early on that Stark is slowly dying from the injuries he received early on in the first film and a lot of the film is him trying to cope with the fact that he is dying. Now this could give us some real insight into Tony Stark and give him a lot of depth, but all we really got was him being a dick and getting drunk. There are very few moments where we get to see him being afraid and so while I like how much time was spent on exploring his character, I really wish they wouldn’t have wasted this on him getting drunk, because all that shows us is that he is a mess. That being said I still appreciated seeing some of his darker sides, but they spent too much time on giving us too little. Also I felt they could have portrayed Stark and Pepper Pott´s relationship a bit differently as it felt like something from a romantic comedy which didn’t really work.

There is a greater focus on the connection to the Marvel Universe as we get much more of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, then the after credits cameo in the first film. This is what start messing up the story a bit as I understand they want to expand on the connection to the universe, however too much was going on that was irrelevant to the main story. Now, re-watching this after seeing the Avengers, it doesn’t bother as much since it’s easier to see the full picture, but it seemed very messy and confusing before that. Same with Agent Romanoff, who felt completely unnecessary to the story, but just a way to shoehorn in connection to the universe. I used to hate that they were doing this, however after seeing how it all fits together I do kind of appreciate it, as I like to think about it as The Avengers series, rather then the Iron Man series.

It may sound like I hate this movie, but I really don’t as it was still very entertaining, despite dragging at times. The action, though a bit too CG heavy, is incredibly entertaining. The massive climactic action scene is just so much fun to watch and just very entertaining. It is however sad that it is very messy at times and the humour isn’t as strong this time around. The film has certain boring and dragged out parts (though I enjoy more insight into Stark), but it is still very fun entertainment when it gets going.  

3/5