"We're going for a ride!"

An armoured red-and-gold figure stands braced, powerful, ready, as the hatch of a cargo plane opens to reveal the city far below.  Three clanking strides, a leap, and Iron Man is airborne, free falling into the night. 

A burst of energy from boots and gauntlets accelerates the gleaming form into the lights below as explosions set the night on fire.  A gout of flame momentarily hammers back the metallic flyer, who quickly recovers and continues his descent, which climaxes with his impact on a circular platform.

And then - dancing girls, rock and roll, lights, fireworks and cheering crowds of fans who scream in ecstacy as drone arms emerge from the rotating stage and disassemble the cybernetic armour to reveal a grinning Tony Stark.

As the music fades and the dancers leave the stage, he spreads his arms in acceptance of the cheers, and says:

"Oh, it's good to be back!"

Welcome to Iron Man 2.  

Sequels are always difficult. Film makers are faced with the challenge of attempting to repeat their success without repeating it too closely, while realizing that whatever they do it will be compared to their first production.  On that basis, how does Iron Man 2 score?

Personally, I found that it scored very well, although it suffers from a peculiar problem that seems to characterize a lot of comic book adaptations.

The best part about the character of Anthony Stark is that the writers have made him so marvelously erratic and spontaneous in his genius, giving him a humour that I don't recall ever seeing in the comic book character. Full points must be given, once again, to Robert Downey Jr.  If he did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him solely so that he could play the role of Tony Stark.

Surprisingly, Mickey Rourke almost matches Downey's star turn.  His portrayal of the villainous Ivan Vanko is an impressive creation, one into which Rourke throws himself completely. Long term fans may be a bit confused by Vanko, who is a combination of two characters from the comics: the original Whiplash and the Crimson Dynamo, an armoured Russian equivalent of Iron Man.

On the down side, I still can't get behind Gwyneth Paltrow as the love interest, and although Don Cheadle is an improvement over Terrence Howard from the first film*, I'd like to see someone with a bit more attitude in the role. I still think Gary Dourdan from CSI would be a good choice, let's try him for Iron Man 3, shall we?

 

One of the few things that I didn't like about the plot of the first movie was that the dice in the climactic battle were so loaded against Iron Man that it really wasn't a fight.  What I wanted to see was Iron Man winning against the odds because he's just so much better at this than his opponents.  Iron Man 2 gave me that experience, although in this case Iron Man shares the spotlight with the War Machine armour, the provenance of which has been changed somewhat from the comic book version.

Okay, all this sounds fairly positive - what "peculiar problem" does Iron Man 2 share with other comic adaptations? 

For no good reason that I can imagine, writers have found it necessary to double or triple up on major characters from the comic versions, creating movies that are just a little bit too busy - or perhaps "wasteful" is the word I want.   (Spiderman 3 and most of the Batman movies share this problem.) 

Scarlett Johansson certainly shows well as the Black Widow (although they never refer to her by that name), and rival industrialist mastermind Justin Hammer loses a few decades and most of his dignity in Sam Rockwell's version of the character. However, with the inclusion of Vanko, Hammer and the Widow, Iron Man 2 is loaded up with two major villains from the comic, an ambivalent love interest/major villain/reformed villain, while keeping Nick Fury involved in the plot - oh, and did I mention the War Machine?  I know that the history of Iron Man as a comic book character dates back to 1963, which offers a rich vein of material to mine for movie adaptations, but let's go easy, people. You could have made three movies with this many characters, it's more than a bit crowded for a two-hour story.

Not to mention all the damn hints about the upcoming Thor, Captain America and Avengers movies…

But really, these are minor issues, and for the most part I found Iron Man 2 to be an excellent followup to the first movie.  However, for me the sad part, the unbelievable part, was when Tony Stark boasts that with the Iron Man armour he has successfully privatized world peace.  It seems terribly naive, and somehow terribly American, to suggest that all the tension, all the anger, all the animosity and hatred in the world, could be completely eliminated by one man in a flying red-and-gold tin can.

- Sid

*A store window mannequin would have been an improvement over Terrence Howard, if you ask me.