Iron Man 2

I think it was pretty obvious to all who saw Iron Man back in 2008 (which was undoubtedly the best comic book adaptation since Batman Begins) that Iron Man 2 would at the very worst be pretty good. The combination of Justin Theroux who is coincidentally probably the coolest man on the planet writing the screenplay and Jon Favreau directing is just a match made in heaven. Not only this but the on screen relationship between Bobby D Junior and Gwyneth Paltrow (who I am legitimately in love with) was so much fun in the first film that it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that this second instalment would be a lot of fun. Indeed, it was very fun.

The plot follows Tony Stark after the public are now aware of his status as being the Iron Man. The government want to shut him down/steal his technologies which he obviously refuses to do with characteristic arrogance and wit. Stark's adversaries in this film are played by the absolutely superb Sam Rockwell who is fast becoming one of my favourite contemporary Hollywood actors and old heavyweight favourite Mickey Rourke. Rockwell and Rourke both steal the show in their respective roles. Rockwell was particularly fantastic in his portrayal of Justin Hammer-a vain, sleazy, charmless man who is desperate to be in the limelight. He had me laughing out loud at several moments in the film without his character feeling like obvious comic relief. Rourke obviously delivers a very competent performance and absolutely nails the Russian accent, his on screen presence has never been quite as formidable and intimidating as it is in this film. Paltrow and Downey Junior deliver performances on a par with those from the first film and the development of their relationship is a joy to watch-very reminiscent of Hans Solo and Princess Leia's bickering and teasing of one another in Empire Strikes back.

Despite the solid performances I felt very distanced from Tony Stark this time around. In the first film Tony displayed extreme arrogance when he was in the public eye but there was clearly a softer and more appealing side to him that only the audience really got to see. Unfortunately in this film he is pretty much just arrogant and vain throughout, I kind of wanted Vanko to kill him at certain points in the film because I was genuinely irritated by how rude he was being throughout. However this is not necessarily the film makers fault as there is a section in the comic series where Stark does go off the rails slightly, starts drinking more than he should and distances himself from those who care for him. I just felt it was a shame that I did not really care so much about his character this time around. Fortunately my disconnection from the protagonist was compensated for by how engaging and entertaining Justin hammer and Ivan Vanko were.

For the most part the action sequences are very competent and thrilling. Most notably at the race tracks where there is the first show down between Iron Man and Vanko/Whiplash.  The almost Spaghetti Western style show down between Stark and Vanko is intensely exciting due to how well established the character's have been up until this point in the film. You care for and enjoy the presence of both and it makes for an absolutely riveting sequence where every blow from Whiplash's suit causes jaw dropping damage to the environment around him. For me the best thing about the original Iron Man was that each battle had a very clear and rounded establishment of what the contenders in each battle represented on a thematic level but also that the ideas were not too high concept. We see Stark fighting Iraqi terrorists and saving innocent hostages as well as fighting his boss at the end of the movie. All sequences had a sense of realism because of the fact Iron Man was very clearly fighting other human's within a very con-temporarily familiar landscape. On a relatively unrelated but important note I would like to add that War Machine and Iron man fighting each other to the tune of Daft Punk's Robot Rock made my dick move-coolest thing I have ever seen.

(Daft Punk, smashing it.)

 Although Iron Man 2 manages to perfectly transpose these same features into the aforementioned car race sequence it fails to do so in the climax of the film which should undoubtedly have been the most exciting sequence. Instead we have Iron Man and War Machine fighting a horde of drone robots which is frankly just dull, you are essentially just watching them shoot moving pieces of metal for ten minutes or so. You can tell that they just threw the rest of the budget into this closing sequence of the film and in doing so soured how entertaining the rest of the film had been in almost every aspect. In many ways the budgetary limitations of the original Iron Man worked hugely in it's favour as they did not have the opportunity to be lavish with a sequence of around fifty robot's flying around blowing everything in their path up. Another quibble I had with the film was how transparent Scarlett Johansson was as simply being used for eye candy, it made pretty much everything she did seem superficial and boring due to her painfully obvious visual function. Gwyneth Paltrow is more than enough for any man in my humble opinion.

Iron Man 2 is not as good as it's predecessor but it is certainly a roller coaster ride of excitement and humour. Rockwell and Rourke steal the show in this fairly unforgettable comic book action flick. I would definitely recommend going to see it despite it's problems. I would genuinely be shocked if anybody disliked it. As predicted-the worst anybody could say about it is that it's pretty good. I however thought it very good.