Review: Iron Man 2 Is Weird Yet Solid
- Jan 30, 2018
- 2 min read
Iron Man 2 answers the question on everyone's lips after the first film: what happens next?
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) is dying from his arc reactor, the government is doing everything it can to get ahold of Tony's suits, and there's a new guy on the block with his own mechanical exosuit. After being attacked by Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) in his exosuit, he's secretly recruited by Stark's rival CEO Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) to build exosuits. When Tony throws himself 'one last birthday party', and starts using his suit dangerously under the influence, his friend Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes steps in and fights him in a stolen suit. The suit is then delivered to Hammer, who modifies it and debuts it alongside his own unmanned weapons. But Vanko has his own plans with the suits...
Iron Man 2 is a strange film. It starts with a plotline that is rapidly overcome then all but forgotten. Then it introduces "Natalie Rushman" (Scarlett Johansson), known today as the Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff. And then after the first half of the Vanko storyline is put to rest, it just takes some time out to focus on Tony's story, without really progressing anything else along. At its heart, this movie - this trilogy, even - is about Tony and his suits rather than his fight with Hammer or Vanko. It's an incredibly strange, and potentially incorrect, method of pacing. But it works well - and for the sake of the story being told, I'm glad it does.
This is also the only movie that happens between Iron Man and The Avengers that has the chance to set up SHIELD's role in the MCU storyline (at least in the modern day). Samuel L Jackson is the perfect Nick Fury, and ScarJo is somehow even better as the mysterious assassin Romanoff. The SHIELD scenes also seemed to fit well in the movie, even if its placement in the movie is strange.
Iron Man 2 may be the least memorable of the Iron Man movies, and depending on who you talk to and how much they love the Mandarin, the weakest. But it is the vital link in Tony's story, of who he is, and how he became the Iron Man he is in the Avengers movies. And it's great entertainment, too.
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