The knowledge that Tony Stark is in fact Iron Man, is now public, as he must confront a new arch nemesis in Ivan Vanko, while still trying to maintain world peace. Solid superhero film is slick and spirited, but most of all, it still has a sense of humor. We have Robert Downey Jr. to thank for that. He continues to bring a light, smart-alecky tone to the role. He’s fun and so is the film. The assemblage of characters can be a bit exasperating however. We have two villains this time, as well as two sexy female co-workers for Tony Stark. In both cases, one would have been enough. The story awkwardly juggles these performers, almost as if a bigger cast, meant a better story. Still there’s lots of action and the story does move briskly. A dependable action film. You won’t be blown away, but you’ll never be bored either.
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3 Responses
I agree with you on most points regarding the film, but I must disagree on the character overload. Perhaps it’s because I know there is so much more in store or maybe it’s because I am a fan of the “unnecessary” actors. All I know is I look forward to years of rivalry between Stark(Downey) & Hammer(Rockwell). They both have electric personalities – so I can’t wait to see the sparks fly. I imagine that Hammer will be an instigator of many a fight & benefactor to many villains to come. As far as Black Widow(Johansson), I expect she’s either have a bigger part in the next Iron Man, be a large part of The Avengers, Thor or Captain America(whichever?) or possibly her own film(depending on audience response). All of this(of course) is just speculation based on many a rumor, but there’s always a bit of truth to rumors, so I won’t be surprised either way. One thing I didn’t like though – was the Tony & Pepper relationship aspect. It was cuter and more playful in the first film. The honeymoon is over I guess?
Perhaps that was the problem with the character overload: namely the writers wanted to introduce many characters in anticipation of other movies. I like a film to stand on its own. If it exists to set up other character franchises, I lose interest in the current story being told. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the film. I just felt the script lacked a little focus on Iron Man, the reason why I went to see a film called Iron Man 2.
I too pretty much agree with you Mark and would have given Ironman 2 three stars. The unintended consequence, “I think,” from the many characters, which by itself didn’t bother me, was the lack of depth. It all felt rather superficial and, well, you’d be right to point out this is a movie version of a comic book. That said I wanted more and we walked out of the theater and instead of saying, “wow!” we said “that was okay…” My view of storytelling today, at least in this genre, is it isn’t simply enough to see Stan Lee’s prodigious vision made real, or the combination of the paper comic and pre-teen imagination come to life.