Iron Man 2 Has Some Ideas Of High Quality, The Problem Is There's Too Many Ideas Overall (Make Mine Marvel)

PHASE ONE

Discovery

"All I have to do is sit here and watch, as world consumes you."

After Iron Man shattered every box office expectation in 2008, there was no question that a sequel was to come. The Monday after Tony Stark's first movie opened to $98 million, Marvel announced four new movies, one of which was of course Iron Man 2, set for April 30, 2010. The date moved up one week to May 7, but another big adventure with everybody's favorite genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist did indeed arrive in 2010.
Reception was much more muted this time around, and box office didn't quite soar into the stratosphere like many thought it would (it had a much bigger opening weekend than its predecessor, but it wound up making six million less overall). Was this because Iron Man 2 was some sort of Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen level disaster? Not really, but it is totally understandable why viewers weren't as enthralled with this entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the first Iron Man movie.

Part of why Iron Man works so well is that all the components of the story stem from Tonys actions; the various supporting characters have individual plot threads, but the common thread of centered around or being related to Tony Stark makes them feel cohesive as a whole. Iron Man 2 also has a number of ongoing plotlines for numerous characters, which includes adding two primary villains and future Avenger Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson. The problem is that very few of them rarely, if ever, collide or interact. The lack of connective tissue between these stories gets awfully grating, especially since the high number of plot points leave several characters underdeveloped.

Looking at Black Widows debut here in comparison to her future endeavors in the MCU does not do this movies depiction of the character any favors, as Natasha lacks any of the depth, personality or craftiness that would mark successive appearances. Even on its own merits, though, Black Widow, as depicted in Iron Man 2, is just a bland piece of eye candy that's more reminiscent of Megan Fox in Transformers than the super spy who so cleverly tricked Loki in The Avengers. Her lack of depth reinforces how the surplus of plotting found in Iron Man 2 just hurts the movie instead of adding depth to the world of Tony Stark.

Speaking of Stark, he actually fares, out of the entire cast, the best in this adventure. Robert Downey. Jr. is still a charming as ever playing the character, but his plotlines also have a nice amount of maturity to them, specifically in regards to how the arc reactor that keeps shrapnel from hitting his heart is also poisoning his body. On the other hand, sequences dealing with Tonys daddy issues feel poorly done, mainly because there's very little set-up to the idea that Tony has resentment towards his father. Moments, like when he watches a video of his Dad expressing his true fondness for his son, that should be emotionally powerful become just plodding as a result of the lack of this plot having a concrete structure.

Meanwhile, Colonel James Rhodes returns from the first Iron Man movie, this time with a new suit of armor and a whole new actor, Don Cheadle, playing the role. Rhodes is decent, I suppose, in his turn here, having much more personality than Terrance Howard did in the previous film, though the script doesn't set up Tony and Rhodes friendship in enough of a convincing manner to make their fight in the middle of the story feel crucial or heartbreaking. More scenes of them interacting as comrades would have gone a long way to helping make the arc between Iron Man and War Machine feel meaningful. Also; I can let Obadiah slide, at least he'd been working on his hardware for a while, leaving him time to train, but how in the hell does Rhodey know how to operate one of Iron Mans suits?

And then (I told you this movie had a lot of plot elements to get through) we have our bad guys. There's Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), whose got vengeance against Tony and his family on the brain, and Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a billionaire whose always stuck in Tonys shadow. Rourke can be quite a commanding actor, but Vanko is a vehicle for action sequences rather than an actual character. After a sequence on racetrack, which comes after he's been in hiding for a long duration of time, Vanko is kidnapped by Hammer, and is hired to create technology for him. Here, once again, he's tucked away from the world, a story decision that could lead to him gaining some depth in an isolated environment, but instead, just keeps Vanko from becoming an actual character. As he is in the final version of Iron Man 2, he simply comes out as a hodgepodge of various "quirky" traits (He's Russian! He really likes that bird!) that don't add up to a compelling entity.

On the other hand, Justin Hammer is at least a fun creation, mainly thanks to Sam Rockwell's smarmy performance that combines arrogance with a personality driven by his compulsion to be powerful. Tony's always stealing his spotlight, and sequences with him and Downey Jr. bouncing off each other are honestly quite masterful to watch. Why couldn't we have more of this stuff instead of forced Avengers set-up with Nick Fury (whose presence in the film isn't properly explained, likely leaving audience members who didn't stay after the Iron Man credits befuddled as to why Samuel L. Jackson in an eye-patch is in this movie)?

That's sort of, as you can likely tell, why Iron Man 2 is the weakest Marvel Cinematic Universe film in my book. There's a number of good elements in play here, namely in Rockwell and Downey Jr.'s performances, but the problem with movie lies in how those aspects of high quality have their impact undercut by more lackluster elements within the film as a whole. Iron Man 2 just needed more focus, more connection between its plot threads, and most of all, more of Sam Rockwell dancing.