Iron Man 2 entertained me from beginning to end. Who knew that what I was looking for in a superhero movie was wall-to-wall banter, occasionally interrupted by games of Rock’em Sock’em Robots?
To me it was a fine second act that picked up where the first film left off in the sense that it presupposed you were fond of these characters and the Iron Man concept. That way, it could have Tony and Pepper and Rhodey take their BFF chops-busting patter just a little too far, make it a little too manic, as their collective situation took a turn for the worse. It could make Tony’s cockiness, like at the Senate hearing, seem like it clearly has the potential to be destructive for him, even if in the moment you enjoy his triumph over his rivals. It could make the quest of rogue nations and unscrupulous scientists to produce Iron Men of their own feel totally logical, difficult to pull off but dangerous should they succeed, not just to the country but to Stark personally.
With that foundation, you just trot out a suite of funny performances from actors who make their every appearance on screen feel like a pissing contest with the other characters, an attempt to impress them with their intelligence and wit and charm, even though the situation is such that that usually doesn’t cut it. Robert Downey Jr. pulled off pushing Stark’s charm offensive into purely offensive territory, and then dialing it back down in a way where you’d forgive him. Sam Rockwell played Justin Hammer like the scrapped pilot episode of Tony Startk, before it was recast and recut and became a huge hit; I enjoyed how he was always nervously projecting alpha-male vibes even though he was constantly two steps behind of everyone he dealt with. Don Cheadle has Terrence Howard’s easy familiarity with Tony built in, but I bought the way he was constantly on the lookout for a way both to take care of his friend and best him in some way or other–a friendly rivalry where both the friendship and the rivalry were intact. I’d actually forgotten how effective and adorable Gwyneth Paltrow is in the girl friday role, and thought it was funny that she brought that same skill set of quietly but firmly dismissing idiocy in favor of getting the job done to her new role as CEO. Mickey Rourke was scary and convincingly single-minded–I dug how he mostly avoided giving a Hannibal Lecture and never deviated from a simple goal of revenge, which as we learn was sort of justified to boot. The two iffiest performances are the proto-Avengers turns from Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson, but in both cases what you might see as weaknesses I ended up digging: Nick Fury feels like he dropped in from a whole ‘nother movie, which I guess is how the world’s top spy would feel in a superhero world like this one, and even if it wasn’t intentional, maybe emotionless and dead behind the eyes is precisely how an experienced double-agent spy-assassin like the Black Widow would be.
Normally I’d argue that as with any superhero story, the proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is the fight sequences. In this case, the movie is so much more a battle of wits than a battle of emotion that I think that’s actually less true than it usually is, but as it turns out the fights were fun and as well choreographed as you’re likely to see in a superhero movie. They took advantage of their environments, they utilized the unique capabilities of the armor suits involved, and with the exception of the flying chase (which was way too darkly lit, probably to hide the CGI work) their stages and stakes were easy to understand. I mean, you have to hand it to a fight scene where a key beat is having your limo driver run a dude over and pin him to a chainlink fence.
Most importantly, I never felt like my intelligence was being insulted, and trust me, after going to see freaking Clash of the Titans in the freaking theater, I definitely needed that from my summer action blockbuster. If anything, I felt like the stupidity of the cool-guy trappings Stark surrounds himself with was being winked at–that gloriously tasteless AC/DC stripperobics routine at the beginning, for example, felt like the movie was Steely Danning the G4 generation. And the addition of characters never felt like superhero-sequelitis to me; the various combinations of players moved the plot forward rather than weighing it down or making it scatterbrained. A delight! I hope you enjoy it if you see it.
Steely Dan is so fetch.
Finally saw it last night and I agree with your review 100%. Still not too convinced with Jackson… he seems to be playing more Samuel L. Jackson than Nick Fury.
I’m so pleased IM2 is feeling the love.
I agree about 98%: I liked Samuel L Jackson’s performance.
Agreed Scarlett Johannsen’s delivery was pretty flat but her skin-tight suit, I mean Fight Scene were spectacular.
When I left the theater, my first words to my wife were “I want one” to which her response was, quite reasonably, “No”.
Having said that, I remained un-distracted enough by ScarJo looking freaking fantastic in that suit to notice that her fight choreography was AMAZING and totally character driven. Her whole fighting style was spider-like, in that she used all of her limbs, and was constantly entrapping her foes to take them out rather than just slugging them all in the jaw. Add the widow’s bite and her garotte as a “web” that she used to strangle and/or hang her opponents, and it was a damn fine bit of work by the choreographer.
I gotta agree the movie was just right: a lot of fun, good characters, rousing action.
I was very surprised at the many lukewarm reviews it received — almost as if many of the critics were just looking for something negative to say.
Excellent description of Rockwell’s performance as Justin Hammer, Sean. Glad you liked the movie (I did too).
Paul: Yeah, you hate to impute negative reviews to your imagined goings-on in the head of the reviewer, but it does feel like people expected it not to live up to the original, and expected it to succumb to superhero-sequelitis in terms of not being able to balance all the new characters and multiple villains. (But there was really only one villain in terms of someone to fight.) Then again there are reviews like Tom Spurgeon’s that don’t rely on that sort of thing at all; of course Tom didn’t like the first one either, though.
Everyone: I actually found Gwyneth Paltrow much more attractive in the context of the film, a world in which people rise and fall with the strength of their personalities and their ability to articulate and actualize ideas. Pepper just seemed a lot more functional in this way, and therefore a lot more interesting and appealing, than did the blank stare and flat affect of Natasha. Also, I think I’m over leather jumpsuits.
“Also, I think I’m over leather jumpsuits.”
I don’t like the way the world is changing…
Yes, I also have to agree: Pepper was much more attractive than Natasha [who was certainly plenty attractive] and for the reasons you give.
I was expecting a scene showing Natasha having some more flare, but a lot of that was cut. I read Favreu saying audiences did not like so many scenes with Tony and N, as they detracted from the T&P relationship.
Jim D: Great description of why that fight scene worked so well.