Short Take: Shows more promise in future Marvel films than in itself. Entertaining, but disjointed.

Director: Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Elf)

Screenwriter: Justin Theroux (Tropic Thunder)

Cast: Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, Sherlock Holmes, Tropic Thunder), Don Cheadle (Brooklyn’s Finest, Hotel Rwanda, Ocean’s 11), Gwyneth Paltrow (Two Lovers, Iron Man), Scarlett Johansson (He’s Just Not That Into You, The Spirit, Vicky Christina Barcelona), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler, Domino, Sin City), Sam Rockwell (Everybody’s Fine, Moon, Frost/Nixon)

Length: 2 hours 4 minutes

Synopsis: Picking up where the last film left off, the film follows Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) as he struggles to overcome a number of obstacles after revealing he is Iron Man.  Stark fights to keep the U.S. government from taking the Iron Man technology while also competing with fellow arms businessman Justin Hammer (Rockwell).  However, Stark has bigger problems like Ivan Vanko (Rourke), an angry nemesis out for revenge against the Stark family, as well as the threat that the piece of machinery keeping him alive may also be slowly killing him.  On top of all this, Stark tries to cultivate his budding romance with Pepper Potts (Paltrow) while also flirting with his mysterious new personal assistant Natalie (Johansson).

Analysis: Sequels, especially of the comic book adaptation variety, often encounter the problem of trying to tackle too many storylines at once, thereby creating a film with enormous potential and little follow-through.  Spider-Man 3 is perhaps the most important expression of this tendency with three villains, two love interests and a lot of angst for its titular superhero.  The film offered interesting scenarios for Spiderman but didn’t pursue them enough, and the film ended up being weaker than it could have been.  Unfortunately, Iron Man 2 suffers from the same problem, though perhaps not on so large a scale.  There are some potentially brilliant ideas in the film, however none of them are taken far enough and the film ends up being a sad shadow of what could have been.

Though each of the many storylines has its own appeal, perhaps the most intriguing involves Stark’s fight to keep the U.S. government from getting the Iron Man technology.  Since the ending of the last film Iron Man’s supposed indestructibility has caused a complete halt to all terrorist or hostile activity, and understandably the U.S. military wishes to have control of the technology as well.  Stark, claiming he has “privatized world peace,” refuses to give them the suit, suggesting that he and Iron Man are one and that the technology is not for sale.  However, it is probable that the main motive behind Stark’s reluctance is his fear that if the technology becomes available, not everyone will use if for peace as he does.  In the wrong hands, the technology no longer becomes an object of hope but an object of fear.  That possibility is expressed through Rourke’s character who, in his quest to destroy Stark, nearly murders countless civilians in the process.

On the other hand, the government’s fears are equally justified.  Certainly, the suit and the technology behind it are Stark’s personal property, but the question of whether one man should have so much power must be addressed.  Stark may be a genius devoted to world peace, but how can people be assured he will always put humanity’s interests first?  That fear is expressed when Stark’s worsening health leads to erratic behavior.  Downey Jr. has always played Stark as a man constantly straddling the line between genius and lunacy, and he manages to make Stark’s struggle with mortality both sympathetic and dangerous.  We as the audience know that Stark will prevail because he’s the hero, but Downey Jr. makes it seem as though the character actually could self-destruct.

While all of the storylines surrounding the Iron Man technology and Stark’s illness work quite well, what makes the film seem overloaded are the elements that set up the upcoming The Avengers movie.  Iron Man, with other Marvel characters like Thor and Captain America, joins a superhero organization called the Avengers.  So to set the groundwork for that future franchise, the film flows much like an issue from a comic book series.  Often in comics, multiple ongoing storylines are addressed in order to set up later events – which works fine in that medium – but it doesn’t translate so well to film.  Audiences simply aren’t aware of the Marvel universe in the same way a person reading a comic would be, so it falls to this film to make them familiar with it.  Yes it is important to establish that future, but in this case the time spent on The Avengers takes away from time spent making an interesting Iron Man 2.  Hopefully, all of the preparations that hurt Iron Man 2 will make for a stellar The Avengers.

Rating: 6.5

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