Reviews & Previews - Iron Man 2

Posted on Monday, May 24, 2010 at 06:00 PM

Iron Man 2

By: S. Tran

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Mickey Rourke
Directed by: Jon Favreau
Rated: PG-13
Running Time: 124 minutes

With Even More Iron

That pretty much sums up the sequel to the fun adaptation of the comic book from a couple years ago. Not too much has changed from the winning formula that made the first one such a hit. This is both what makes the second movie work and part of the problem with it.

It seems like Favreau thought that if he just added more of the same elements from the first film he could make an even better movie. So we get more robot suits, more witty banter and and more wacky geniuses. The trouble with this is that there isn't enough that is different from the first film to make anything feel fresh. Every sequel has this problem because you know the characters and premise already, but Iron Man 2 seems to go little too far in trying to repeat the success of the first.

The story picks up where the first film left off with Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) enjoying the celebrity and adventures that being Iron Man has provided. Unfortunately, things in superhero movies are not happy for very long and sure enough Stark finds himself fighting the government because it wants his suit and of course a new supervillain with an axe to grind. And to top things off we find out Stark is slowing dying from his chest battery.

Despite all this he has time to fire off witty one liners while hitting on various women including his new assistant (Johansson). Pretty soon though his world crashes down around him and Stark finds himself at rock bottom. Favreau throws in some daddy issues as well just to round things out. Stark has to find a way to work all this out while being menaced by a Russian physicist (Rourke) with his own daddy issues who develops his own version of the Iron Man suit and comes to bring the pain to Stark for something that Stark's dad did to his dad.

The cast is pretty impressive and it seems like half of Hollywood is in the movie at some point. All this star power doesn't really add much to the film, except for Johansson who looks great and gets a chance to show off some old fashioned hero butt kicking skills. Downey Jr. keeps the show moving and the rest of the cast seems to really understand the material and don't get confused as to what kind of movie they are in. This keeps things fun for the audience because we're not forced to watch something pretentious.

The movie is still a good time overall and the effects and action are worth the price of admission. It's not a bad movie by any means, but if there is a sequel they are going to need to find some other menace for old shell head to fight, otherwise it's going to get old real fast.

3.5 stars out of 5

S. Tran also writes at Cracked.com, Gunaxin.com and Uproxx.com