Solid entertainment, slightly underrated

Rating: Null/10 (2 April 2014)

Iron Man 2 is a solid entertainment, cool and efficient and eager to please. If it is a step down from the great 2008 original, that's only because it lacks the freshness and surprise. Yet, you can't hold that against it, films like Iron Man, The Dark Knight and Watchmen have set the standard for everything that a superhero action picture can be. This film doesn't rise to that level but it gets the job done.
The film's invaluable asset is, once again, the presence of Robert Downey, Jr. He knows how to take the role of a billionaire playboy with an endless supply of weapons and toys and turn it up to 11. His chief asset though is his mouth and we can see that during a virtuoso opening sequence in which he trounces a stuffy Senator (Garry Shandling) who is trying to suggest that his Iron Man suit is a WMD that needs to be in the hands of the military. He makes himself a media sensation by announcing "I have successfully privatized world peace." One person, however, doesn't agree. He is Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), a disgruntled Russian physicist who is cheesed off at Stark because his late father helped develop the technology that has made Tony's family billionaires and died penniless and forgotten. He vows vengeance against his adversary and develops two cool-looking electrified whips which he intends to use to take Stark out. As played by Mickey Rourke, we see him as a ball of anger with a garbled accent, gold teeth and body marred by way too many mafia tattoos. Vanko is recruited by Jason Hammer (Sam Rockwell), an opportunist who wants to use the man's genius to steal Stark's technology.
That's the main story, the personal story is actually far more interesting. Tony, you see, is dying. That thingamabob on his chest that was invented to keep him alive is slowly poisoning his blood. He tries and fails to find a cure. He keeps this information a secret from girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and it is killing their relationship. I liked the relationship between Pepper and Tony just as much as in the original because there is real tension here. How can Pepper, who runs Stark Industries, maintain a relationship with a man who, basically, behaves like a giant parody of himself? What director John Favreau does with Iron Man 2 is keep up the pace of the original, if not the inventiveness. The movie is a red-blooded action picture all full of neat gizmos and perfect throw away moments. His action scenes are expertly handled, none better than a brilliant sequence on a racetrack in Monaco. Stark commandeers a race car that he owns only to have it sliced in half on the track by Ivan's electric whips. That sequence owns the movie for me and it cast a pall over the action scenes that follow. They aren't bad, but somehow I got the feeling that the movie played it's best hand too early.
I was a little disappointed in the film's third act. The movie establishes a conflict between Tony and his late father and the conflict brewing in Ivan over his dead father but it never brings the two stories together. The third act is a loud, clanking battle but when it comes around to dealing with the personal issue, pulls up short. That doesn't make the movie bad, but it does leave you a little cold.
Still Iron Man 2 is pure entertainment. You get what you pay for, no fuss no muss. It isn't perfect but it works.