Iron Man 2
Cast & Key People
▶
Our Review
The rushed sequel, and it wears the rush. Tony Stark outs himself as Iron Man, watches his blood poison him, drinks too much, fights a Congress hearing, and juggles a revenge plot, a rival arms dealer, a new assistant who is secretly a spy, and his dying father’s legacy. That is four movies of material crammed into one, and every subplot gets a quarter portion.
Robert Downey Jr. remains a joy even on autopilot, and Sam Rockwell tries hard to steal the picture as Justin Hammer, a jealous arms CEO written as a techbro before the word existed. The Monaco racetrack attack is the one sequence that sings: Mickey Rourke’s Ivan Vanko striding onto the circuit with charged whips is the best entrance in the movie. Then the film locks him in a warehouse for an hour.
Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow debuts here and gets a hallway fight worth the price of admission. Don Cheadle takes over Rhodey without a bump. But the finale is two robot men shooting lasers at an army of spare parts, and the whole middle sags under setup duty for a universe Marvel was building on the fly.
A watchable mess with a great cast. Our score: 5/10, and only the completists need it.
Seasons
Season guides coming soon.
