16Robert Downey Jr.’s devil may care charm is well suited for Tony Stark, a womanizing, narcissistic industrialist with an all too obvious Peter Pan complex. Of course, he is the world’s biggest peacekeeper as Iron Man, and all seems perfect for the billionaire until a scary man named Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) starts making a suit of his own. Plus, Stark has Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) a Machiavellian businessman who ends up teaming with Vanko, nipping on his heels for control of the military’s technology.
With two villains to battle, a best friend (Don Cheadle, replacing Terrence Howard as Lt. Col Rhodes) who questions his every move, a right hand woman who secretly adores him (Gwyneth Paltrow), and a new sexy employee (Scarlett Johansson as Natalia, aka The Black Widow), one would assume that there is a bit too much story for Iron Man 2 to handle. Unfortunately, like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, Iron Man 2 suffers the same fate of putting too much of a good thing into what should have been comprehensible escapist fare.
The film succeeds, however, in detailing the conflicts that slowly eat away at Stark; behind the Iron mask Stark is slowly dying from the power cell technology that he implants in his chest, and he must find a new way to power his suit before it’s too late. Stark is also haunted by the memory of his late, absentee father (Mad Men’s John Slattery), the visionary force behind the Stark Enterprise, and he’s also going up against the U.S. government, who wants control of Stark’s technology.
Director Jon Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux were way too overambitious with Iron Man 2, as their gumbo pot of ideas, though at times engaging, ends up exasperating the viewer by the film’s uninteresting denouement.

The film’s most gripping scenes come during a race in Monaco, when our world’s favorite billionaire is nearly humbled by Whiplash. During a simple sequence in jail, the adversaries have a rather intense exchange, a verbal chess match which essentially has Stark at checkmate. If the filmmakers concentrated on the innate chemistry between Rourke and Downey Jr. and given less time to the supporting players, Iron Man 2 would have been a worthy successor to Iron Man. That being said, Rockwell gives another first rate performance as Hammer, a rich guy eager to step out of Stark’s shadow, and his interplay with Rourke is fun, if not, like most things in the film, extraneous. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) also pops in to make sure Stark isn’t going off the deep end, while Col. Rhodes really wants to wear his own Iron Man suit so he can turn into War Machine. Add to that, Natalia, who is secretly the Black Widow, who works for Fury. It’s a mixed bag, but we have to admit Natalia looks real sexy beating people up.


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