Iron Man 2 Review

I have been waiting anxiously for Iron Man 2 to come out since I saw the first trailer previews back in January (respectively), and I finally got to go see it on Mother's Day.  Needless to say that this was truly one of those cases when expectation exceeded the actual experience.

Now, before I go any further let's be clear...I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy the movie. It just wasn't the cataclysmic euphoria of action packed adventure that I had been anticipating.

 

This installment of the Iron Man series starred the deliciously sexy Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, and this time around he is the same arrogant narcissistic ego maniac that we all knew and loved, but now he has a new set of problems to face. One of which includes the son of a disgraced former collaborator of his late father's company, Ivan Vanko, who has sworn to avenge his father by any means necessary.

Then on top of that, in the wake of Iron Man bringing negotiated peace to the world, the government, under the urging of self-serving weapons expert Justin Hammer, is now seeking to take ownership of Stark's Iron Man technology under the guise of national security, and true to his character he tells them, in his own Stark-esque way, that under no circumstances will he turn over his invention.

And not to mention that in the midst of all this Tony also finds out that the palladium element in the arc reactor that he needs to keep his heart beating is slowly killing him.

So, as you can see...there's a lot going on in this film. To make a long story short, the government some how gets their hands on his Iron Man technology, teams up with the new nemesis, and then the story begins to take off from there.

Without giving away the entire film, I will say that while the powers-that-be did a good job bringing all the plot points of the movie together, but it really felt like they took a long time doing it. For all the fireworks, explosions and fight scenes you see in the trailer, I really felt a little cheated when it was all said and done.

Now, I do have to give it up to Scarlett Johansson, who played Natalie Rushman/Black Widow; she was BAD! Loved, loved, LOVED her! She straight wasn't hold 'em up on those fight scenes. Would love to see more from her in the action movie genre. She was very believable.

 

Samuel L. Jackson was plausible as Nick Fury, but his role was not all that impactful this time around.

Don Cheadle did not sell me in his role as Lt. Colonel James Rhodes (who was also played by Terrence Howard), who also ended up being Iron Man's sidekick. While I usually love Don Cheadle movies and view him as a very good actor, he was just a little too soft spoken for me to come across as a believable military man with the chops to pull off the superhero motif.  But that's just me. FYI- I don't think Terrence Howard could have pulled that off either.

But overall, the movie was enjoyable, but like I said I had built it up so much in my mind that I left the theater feeling a little disappointed.  So at the end of the day, I give Iron Man 2 a solid B+.


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