Iron Man 2

Synopsis: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) has outed himself as the armoured hero, Iron Man, so what next? A blast from his father’s past, as Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) comes seeking revenge for what Howard Stark (John Slattery) did to his own father. And with the US Senate demanding Stark hand over the Iron Man suit to the military, it’s not a good time to demonstrate that Stark is not the only one with a suit of power armour…

The first Iron Man movie came as a breath of fresh air. Far from being the tale of a tortured soul-seeking redemption in the form of comic book heroics, it reveled in its witty banter and never fell into maudlin introspection. Iron Man 2 sees that template partly intact, with the dialogue still the star as the actors fire off snippy lines with the kind of affection that makes the putdowns even more fun. It does however decide to pull things down to earth, as Tony wrestles with his own mortality, the tiny reactor in the chest that powers both his heart and the suit also slowly poisoning him. So he gets drunk and starts acting out, which leads to a pretty fun scene of him in his suit drunkenly fighting with his friend, Jim Rhodes (Don Cheadle, taking over from Terrence Howard). The film isn’t at its best when Tony is feeling sorry for himself though, and Sam Jackson’s return as Nick Fury seems to exist mainly to tell him to pull himself together so the film can get to the fun stuff again. It’s a bit at odds with the self-made-man image given in the first film, and feels a little false, but then again Tony wasn’t being killed by his own genius in the first film either.

Mickey Rourke’s turn as Whiplash is interesting, but he’s an underdeveloped figure whose motivation is fairly pedestrian. The corporate intrigue of the original continues somewhat, as he’s taken under the wing of Stark rival, Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), and gets to build an army of robot drones to wreak bloody revenge on the man he blames for his woes. Rockwell has to be one of the best things in the film, a cocky man constantly fighting an inferiority complex of major proportions, he makes a great second villain. But in the end, the film belongs to Robert Downey Jnr’s Tony Stark. The charming arrogance as he proclaims to the world that he’s privatised world peace is hysterical.

The action is taken up a notch from the original, with the already-seen army of drones, and Jim Rhodes in a second armoured suit chock full of machine guns. Sadly the final battle with Whiplash seems a bit too short and easy, but the scenes before it as Tony and Jim fight the drones more than makes up for the lack. It may not be the surprise that Iron Man was, but Iron Man 2 is still a lot of fun.

FYI:  There was a 2013 sequel Iron Man 3 directed by Shane Black who had worked with Downey on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005).

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