Worthy Sequel

Rating: 7/10 (4 March 2012)

Robert Downey Jr. returns as billionaire weapons designer/superhero/stand-up comedian Tony Stark. Unwilling to mass-produce his Iron Man suit, the race is on to replicate it. Justin Hammer played (Sam Rockwell) is the Bill Gates to Tony's Steve Jobs, evidenced by the stress on their competing arms expos. When Stark's showboating at a racetrack leads to a curiously well-timed showdown with a mysterious Russian named Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), Hammer sees an opportunity to fund a project to surpass Tony's and win a lucrative military contract. Ivan has other ideas in mind, wanting to make Tony pay for the betrayal his father was dealt. Can Tony stop them? Will Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) finally accuse him of sexual harassment? Truth be told there are some funny lines and a couple of quality moments of comic book style action. There's also a ton of falsified marketing. Iron Man 2 is going to get your hopes up, then disappoint you with a ridiculous subplot. There is a tremendous lull in the action because Tony is forced to discover a cure for a blood-polluting toxin found in his arch reactor. It's not terribly interesting and it's brought in for what I like to call the "Batman Effect": the altering of a hero's costume for the purpose of merchandising.
I know the first movie wasn't action heavy. It was the origin story explaining how Tony Stark became Iron Man and it was filled with witty jokes and banter between Tony and his secretary Pepper. Well for some reason it was decided to take out those sincere moments and throw in interloping arguments. Many conversations in Iron Man 2 can't be recalled because they consist of characters talking over one another.
Don Cheadle has replaced Terrence Howard as Stark's go-to guy Lt. Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes. Though Rhodes physically does more in this sequel, he seems to have less face time because Tony needs to talk to just about everyone else in the world. Now Tony is to meeting with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) who you may not remember if you left Iron Man prior to the completion of the credits. Scarlett Johansson is brought on board for a role that equates to eye candy. Rather than see her emote like an android, I'd prefer some more time with Stark's robots. In the original, Stark's lab was a fun set where he tinkered with his suit while being assisted by his inventions. It was Frankenstein meets Pee-wee's Playhouse and it was one of the many strong points of Iron Man. I suppose that since he has his suit now he doesn't need to spend time in the lab, but the subplot that has him making adjustments is a tough pill to swallow. It's not unreasonable to say that his arch reactor is poisoning his blood, sure it's not a story line worth spending half the film on, but it's not unreasonable.