FILM REVIEW
05/07/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Iron Man 2
Director: Jon Favreau
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Gywneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke
Studio: Paramount / Marvel
The first Iron Man was a real joy to see at the cinema, filled with fun and a likable screen presence in Downey Jr. So expectations for this sequel were fairly high. I went to see it at a press screening at Odeon Leicester Square in the evening. I bumped into a few fellow journos there as I often do. Unfortunately my verdict on Iron Man 2 is that it lacks the cohesion and fun that the first one possessed.
Here, Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) is publicly known as superhero Iron Man now and the US government is pushing him to share that technology. Enter slightly shady business magnate Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) who joins forces with Russian supervillain Whiplash, played by an increasingly strange looking Mickey Rourke. He believes that his father was hard done by Stark’s father Howard and is out for revenge. Meanwhile the technology that is keeping the millionaire alive is failing and so he turns to the work of his long-dead dad to help him out.
Downey Jr. is still good value here but the quips are fewer and the increased screen time of Paltrow, at her whiniest as an actress, makes for a less-than-engaging movie. Rockwell is obviously a fantastic actor under normal circumstances but he’s just a plot device here as is Rourke. Stark’s battle with his failing health is resolved very neatly and the one nod to the classic ‘Demon In A Bottle’ story from the comics is a clumsy scene that is up there with Peter Parker dancing in Spider-man 3 for misconceived superhero film sequences. Also, the Favreau cameo as Stark’s bodyguard, while charming and short in the first film, is rather too long and protracted here.
There are a few nice set-pieces here (the senate committee to force Stark to hand over the Iron Man suit, the Stark weapons expo and a sitdown with Samuel Jackson’s Nick Fury) but overall it doesn’t gel. And the final battle between Iron Man and War Machine versus the drones looks and feels like a video game. Scarlett Johanssen as Black Widow is totally redundant here too: while she looks pretty amazing, there’s not a lot for her to do.
Perhaps Iron Man 2 has been hit by second film syndrome but it’s an empty and hollow experience, that will leave little impact on the viewer once they’ve left the cinema. At the end of the film, we are left with a nod with another Marvel superhero but let’s hope that the third film is more like the first and this was a temporary blip.