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Movie review: Iron Man 2
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. is back in Iron Man 2
By Maggie Scott
In 2008 another hero from the beloved Marvel Comics world of Stan Lee made a successful transition to cinematic life. Iron Man was a blockbuster, thanks in no small way to the cheeky performance of Robert Downey, Jr.
Two years later, he and his super body armor are back for more action in Iron Man 2, but the thrill is gone, thanks in large part to the undernourished script by Justin Theroux and Stan Lee. That’s not to say that there isn’t a good dose of Downey’s pugnacious charm on display, as his character,
Tony Stark, continues to brashly defy authority—this time, in the interest of world peace and the right of the individual to retain possession and control of the fruits of his labors. Even though the world has seen the longest period of tranquility in its history, thanks to Iron Man, certain lawmakers in the U.S. government, like one Senator Stern (Garry Shandling), have decided that the Iron Man technology—the technology that “stabilized East-West relations”— is safer in the hands of the Pentagon.
Stern believes Iron Man is a weapon. Stark believes Iron Man is a “high tech prosthesis;” that the “two of them are one.”
Stern is prepared to use not just Stark’s friend Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) against him, but the nefarious Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), CEO of Hammer Advanced Weapons Systems. Hammer is just one of several contenders for domination of the market for killing machines working on Iron Man suit knock-offs, which Stark blithely contends are more than 20 years away from being operational. The feds are not the only troubles Stark faces.
It appears that the “core” of the Iron Man suit, which has kept him alive, is poisoning his blood. Stark Industries is “in disarray,” according to the loyal and loving Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow); and a warped Russian named Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) wants vengeance for what he perceives to have been the “millions of deaths” at the hands of the Stark family of “thieves and butchers.” As “The Whiplash” and as the diabolical mind Hammer needs to complete the army of drones he’s been working on for the government, Ivan is an opponent against whom there is not an ironclad assurance of victory.
Although Ivan makes a flashy villain as Whiplash, he never seems a worthy adversary for Stark; and Hammer doesn’t raise any menacing hackles as a whiny weasel.
Woefully underutilized is the voluptuous Scarlett Johansson, as a legal aide at Stark Industries, who gets to prove she’s got what it takes to get her martial arts mojo on. Stay through the closing credits for a surprise scene.
A Paramount Pictures release, rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence and some language.
