"The man in the iron irony"

Rating: 8/10 (8 May 2010)

Let's not fall over ourselves too much trying to define the merits and faults of this film and comparing it to 'Iron Man 1.' I'd rather just look at the new one and see if we can tease out any new ideas and angles.
The 'Iron Man' stories begin with the happy union of technology and business, and have a protagonist unlike the meek, altruistic sort of comic book super hero. Tony Stark is the son of a corporate giant, born rich (though unloved), a profligate rogue, a wild playboy. He is the slightly rotten fruit of big-time capitalist success, the second generation that doesn't give a damn and just wants to have fun. However, he is also his father's son, gifted with a gigantic ego and also a genius, and so he has a heroic role forced upon him. Being a valuable commodity, he is kidnapped, and must escape by building a suit of hi-tech body armor instead of the mega-weapon his captors want. He suffers severe heart injuries in the process, thus becoming vulnerable at the same moment that he rises to super power. And with the vulnerability, the genius, and the growing power, he makes it clear that he remains the devil-may-care playboy.
Later Stark is inspired to adopt his extraordinary creation, with him inside it, in the interests of protecting mankind. In the comics the enemy was communism. Now (in the first 'Iron Man' movie) it's terrorism and a rival within Stark Industries who would take it over, the evil Obadiah Stane, played by Jeff Bridges. In 'Iron Man 2,' the enemies are two: a foolish prancing peacock of an upstart industrialist competitor, Justin Hammer (an excellent Sam Rockwell), who wants to eliminate Stark and his company and have his, not Tony's, exo-skeletal weaponry be what the Pentagon exclusively buys and uses; and a dangerous maverick Russian, half criminal, half tech wizard, with bad memories of Tony's father. This individual, Ivan Vanko (a brilliantly used Mickey Rourke), winds up unwillingly serving Justin Hammer, but breaks out on his own in time to do battle with Stark and Hammer, allied.
I think it's safe to say screenwriter Justin Theroux is having some fun with the sacrosanct values of the original Cold War era comic source of Iron Man. Capitalism's worst excesses are mocked through the smugness of Justin Hammer, with his constant preening that's always shown up as pointless, and through Tony's own boasts, most of all the stunner, "I have successfully privatized world peace!" This declaration comes at a donnybrook Senate hearing supervised by a smiling nonentity of a committee chairman (Garry Shandling) at which Stark manages to commandeer the room's visual system and make a mockery of efforts by Iran, North Korea, and Hammer to copy his Iron Man suits. That's a provocative statement. Privatizing warfare (i.e., in Orwellian terms, "world peace") brings to the liberal mind horrible thoughts of Blackwater and its ilk. Such warfare is a definite, real-life Bush era trend. Privatizing world peace, on the other hand, may sound like a good idea if it takes away from nation states their capacity to wage perpetual war. Unfortunately such privatizing would (and does) also undermine the authority of the principled international bodies that attempt to maintain order.
Theroux also has fun this time with foreign threats, as an aspect of Pentagon (and war-industry-promoted) paranoia, which were taken so seriously in the first Iron Man film with its evil Middle Easterners in caves forging weapons. This time the foreign enemy, spouting Russian words and a creditable accent, covered in tattoos, with a pet cockatoo, an S&M outfit, and lashing Formula One racing cars to pieces with electric whips, is...Mickey Rourke! Right out of 'The Wrestler, but looking happy and tan since his recent comeback. But it's hard to say whether the flurry caused by Rourke's deliciously absurd Ivan Vanko is satire on right wing paranoia or the frivolity of spinning out quirky villains à la Ian Fleming (whose politics were not deep, or congruent with today's realities). ' Above all the "ideas" of either 'Iron Man' movie, whether serious or frivolous, looms the by now seemingly inimitable and essential personality of Robert Downey Jr., who as Tony Stark gets to play endlessly creative riffs off the kind of outrageous, funny but dangerous, clever but seriously unwise person he was in his own real life as a heavy substance abuser and party boy whose using got him into constant trouble and finally prison, treatment, and sobriety. He gets to fulfill the A.A. Promise, 'We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.' In playing Tony Stark, Downey gets to relive his past, without the alcohol, pot, coke, or heroin. When he was on the downward path of the addict he was doing some of the most important research into his role. That research is why he can so easily access the outrageousness and edgy wit of Tony Stark. This role is sometimes seen as a surprising outcome of Downey's comeback, coming after serious stuff like 'A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints;' 'Good Night, and Good Luck;' 'A Scanner Darkly;' and 'Zodiac.' But Tony Stark is really quite logical, representing the addict's fantasies of glory as well as his self-scrutiny. When Tony's told at the end of 'Iron Man 2' that he's been diagnosed as a classic narcissistic personality, he readily agrees. Any connection with the personality of the typical corporate CEO is, of course, purely coincidental. Not for nothing does the 'New York Times' critic A.O. Scott's review of 'Iron Man 2' begin with the heading "The Man in the Iron Irony."