Iron Man 2
In making a sequel to the wildly successful Iron Man, director / co-star Jon Favreau made sure to retain a number of elements from the original, most notably Robert Downey Jr. bringing ample amounts of swagger and angst as billionaire businessman Tony Stark. Downey rarely can do a role where he doesn’t get an audience on his side, despite the heavily narcissistic nature of the character, and continues to make Stark a compelling figure, if not as heavily layered as say, Bruce Wayne; Also coming back is Gwyneth Paltrow as his assistant (now turned CEO) Pepper Potts, whose lightweight banter with Downey featuring just a twinge of sexual tension is always fun to see; Terrence Howard as the best friend / sidekick has now been replaced by Don Cheadle, who admittedly does the best he can playing a role that was originated by someone else; and Samuel L. Jackson pops up again as Nick Fury in what is mostly an effort to continuously promote the upcoming Avengers movie, where presumably a bunch of Marvel comics heroes (similar to DC’s Justice League) team up to battle evil all around the world. Also prevalent once again is some nearly seamless CGI work, not looking so much like lame computer graphics but really bringing the Iron Man concept to life in a realistic, plausible style. Unfortunately, the script seems to get a little confused as to whom it wants to be the primary villain of the piece, seemingly setting up in the opening scenes to be the nefarious Russian Whiplash (Mickey Rourke), but then sidewinding and trying to give equal time to the unscrupulous businessman rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell). As a result (and unfortunately for Rourke fans), this causes the Whiplash character to get a bit shortchanged, and is never allowed to develop into a truly great supervillain, even as Rourke does what he can with the material he’s given and still manages to do a fine job. Rockwell, on the other hand, brings a little too much comedic panache to the Hammer character, making him little more than a clown with a very large bank account so that the viewer never really takes him too seriously, and a silly little dance that Rockwell does late in the film as his character seems to revel in his power almost totally kills it. Then there’s the other subplot about how Stark is slowly dying from the effects of being Iron Man and how Fury seems to have all the answers, mostly because Stark’s own late father supplied Fury with the info needed to create a new element and save his son’s life, and the fact that Tony wouldn’t have had this knowledge passed down to him directly (and thus give Fury a literal purpose to the story) seems a bit contrived. However, that DOES give us a reason to have Scarlett Johansson (one of the most gorgeous actresses working today) on board as the Black Widow (one of Fury’s operatives), even as she revives the old cliché of the ass-kicking female who can whip any man like a dog; and even forgotten comedy legend Garry Shandling (looking to be suffering from the aftereffects of some bad plastic surgery) shows up as a slimy Senator. Overall, while not quite Dark Knight-good in the field of comic book sequels, a nice enough little diversion as they set up their big Avengers movie, which hopefully won’t amount to an overdone clusterfuck…
7/10