"Iron Man 2" - A Movie Review by Katie Carter

It’s hard not to compare “Iron Man 2” to its 2008 predecessor, “Iron Man”. After all, the latter was one of the highlights of that summer, a blockbuster that was fresh, funny, and exciting. In contrast, “Iron Man 2” is almost exactly the opposite, and even just examining it on its own proves that it’s not all it could—or should—be.


“Iron Man 2”, again directed by Jon Favreau (who also acts in the film), begins six months after the first “Iron Man” ended. The world knows billionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is the armored superhero, and the government—and his friend Colonel James Rhodes Don Cheadle)—starts pestering him to hand over his suit to the military. Meanwhile, the suit is wreaking havoc on Tony’s health, and he appoints his longtime secretary Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) as CEO of Stark Industries. He then makes newcomer Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson) his new secretary, but she has a secret agenda. Then there’s the issue of Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), Stark’s rival in weapons manufacturing, who wants to learn the Iron Man suit’s technology. So he hires Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), a Russian physicist whose father was deported by Tony’s father (played by John Slattery in some wonderful retro flashbacks) many years ago, to help him out. And then there’s Samuel L. Jackson…well, need I go on?


In some ways, “Iron Man 2” suffers from exactly the same thing “Spiderman 3” did several years ago. There’s almost too many characters, too much going on, thus undermining the already weak plot and causing Tony and Pepper (who, thanks to some great dialogue and acting had amazing chemistry in the first movie, and still have some stand-out scenes in this film) to get a bit lost in the mix.


There aren’t really even any great action scenes to make the experience worthwhile. The special effects—namely all of Tony’s nifty computers—are impressive, but the action scenes are few and far between, and even when there was one it was short and even relatively dull, eventually resorting to such clichés as guy walking slowly away from explosion.


“Iron Man 2” is still worth a watch for its bits of humor and playful references to other Marvel superheroes (all leading up to the forthcoming Avengers movie), but somewhere along the way it lost its spark. We can only hope it will recover it in time for “Iron Man 3”.

2 1/2 out of 5 stars.