Movie Review #36 Iron Man 2

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Iron Man 2 (2010) Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow Directed by Jon Favreau

The summer has snuck up upon me…with the summer comes my favorite season of the year, that’s movie season. It is mostly true that the summer movies generally kind of suck…too much fire and explosions, not enough writing, but even I know better than to have expectations for these films…I just try to enjoy them. Iron Man 2 opens this season and like last year (with Wolverine kicking off the summer) Marvel Comic characters rule again. I always give the first of the summer a free pass (Wolverine Movie Review #5 did I give that a 6.5 ? hmm…that’s a bit much) and Iron Man 2 gets that pass (more like a point a point or two bump really). Though it was not as likable as the first one and still had a bit of a crappy bad guy, it was good enough to go see. I recommend it mostly because it’s the first summer movie of the year, but also because Gary Shandling shows up as Senator.

Iron Man 2 is the continuing story of Billionaire, playboy, and weapons contractor Tony Stark. This time around Mr. Stark has to fight Ivan Vanko (played by Mickey Rourke…sort of well) who is a Russian physicist who Tony’s father used to be involved with. Along for the ride is the lovely Pepper Potts (played fine by Gwyneth Paltrow) and the sneaky Natasha Romanoff (played lazily by Scarlett Johansson) who some of you comic nerds may know by a different name Black Widow. Along the ride we also meet a rival weapons contractor, Justin Hammer (played well by Sam Rockwell) who is there to be the benefactor of Ivan Vanko…because of course they both want Tony Stark dead. To add a little fire power to the mix they throw in Stark’s best friend Lt. Col. Rhodes (who dawns a suit this time around and becomes “War Machine”) and helps out. There is a lot going on in this film, but it’s not as messy as Spiderman 3 was. I still think that Iron Man works not because of the material, but more so because the good actors they use give it a bit of credibility. To tell the truth the only really likable character in the film was Nick Fury (played by the always charismatic Samuel L. Jackson) and maybe a few other cameo characters like John Slattery of Mad Men fame, who shows up as Starks father. I liked Iron Man 2, didn’t love it, but I liked it. Hey it’s the summer time people; let’s go see crap blow up huh?

(The Shawshank Scale 1-10) So Iron Man comes back to fight The Wrestler and privatize world peace…wait was that Gary Shandling as a senator? Now that’s funny…So with the first of the summer bump I can give it a solid 6.5 on the Shawshank Scale and not feel too dirty.

Food For Thought: Downey Jr. has a funny film called Due Date coming later this year, and of course The Avengers, Sherlock Holmes 2, and Iron Man 3 all coming soon as well. Paltrow has a cool sounding thriller co-starring Matt Damon and Jude Law called Contagion coming in 2011 and Sam Rockwell’s next Cowboys & Aliens sounds whack.