@theMovies: Iron Man 2

05/05/10 07:55

In 2008, billionaire arms tycoon and part-time superhero Tony Stark graduated from the Marvel Comics B-list to Hollywood superstar status in “Iron Man,” featuring Robert Downey Jr. as the swaggering tech genius trying to blast his way to World Peace so he can get back to chatting up hotties at the bar. Director John Favreau reunites almost the whole gang from the original film in “Iron Man 2,” with decidedly mixed success.

As our preposterous story opens, Stark’s metallic alter ego has made the world safe for democracy in less than six months. His only remaining adversary is a doughy Gary Shandling as a US senator bent on taking custody of the Iron Man armor in the interest of national security. Enter Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko, a Russian Randy the Ram with some sort of homebrew version of the original Iron Man power pack, featuring electrically-charged bullwhips instead of a full suit of armor. (It didn’t make much sense to us either.) Sam Rockwell is Justin Hammer, nerdy arch-nemesis of Stark Industries, whose master plan is to steal Stark’s technology and get rich selling a knockoff Iron Man to the Department of Defense. It’s a bit like Bill Gates asking a Russian Jason Chen to help him pinch an iPhone prototype and make Zune phones to sell to the Feds. Or something.

Of course, plot is hardly the point here. Favreau delivers more than enough action to keep the ball rolling. Roarke’s electro-whips slash most of the field to ribbons in the middle of a Formula One race in Monaco. Downey and Don Cheadle get into a full metal dustup when Stark’s Iron Man gets toasted at his birthday party and starts blowing up watermelons to entertain the guests. (Yes, really.) Scarlet Johannson as The Woman Who May Be More Than She Seems lays an Emma Peel-style smackdown on a team of security guards. And the obligatory CGI mayhem ensues when Downey and Cheadle take on an army of Iron Man clones in Act III.

As in the first film, Downey’s Tony Stark fits him like a heavily-armored glove here. Rockwell is fine as Stark’s twitchy rival, though his villainy is more Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor than Heath Ledger’s Joker. Except for the Formula One slashfest, Roarke is given surprisingly little to do. Paltrow, in a ”meh” role, delivers a “meh” performance. The always engaging Samuel L. Jackson shows up again for a few scenes, though his eye-patched presence is a fairly obvious plug for Marvel’s movie version of the super-team comic The Avengers, which isn’t due until 2012. Johannson is apparently in the cast mainly to set up her Black Widow character for that same sequel. (Sit through the lengthy closing credits for a brief coda involving another Marvel hero who’s headed to the big screen next summer.) “Iron Man 2” feels a good bit less fresh than the original. But the film features a mostly appealing cast and avoids adding nipples to the hero’s costume, which is about as much as can be expected from a superhero sequel nowadays.

0 Comments