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You may hate Tony Stark, but you can’t hate Iron Man
I have a tendency not to expect a lot from comics turned movies and I tend to expect even less from science fiction sequels. There are only a few science fiction or comic sequels that pull it off successfully such as Spiderman 2, Transformers 2 and now Iron man 2.
For the record, Terrence Howard doesn’t make a comeback; his character Lt. Col Rhodes is played by Don Cheadle (who by the way doesn’t even look the part). The movie only has two fight scenes and no, I repeat; no sex scene but even then it didn’t disappoint (kind of).
And now for the hot stuff; Scarlet Johansson was added to the cast. She doesn’t really add much to the film except her impressively lustful good looks and Mickey Rourke, who I get the feeling is preparing for a full comeback, plays the villain.
In this film a mysterious and rugged scientist, Ivan (Rourke) believes that Tony Stark’s father stole the idea of the Iron Man suit from his father. He creates something that looks like a primitive version of the iron man suit and he attacks Tony Stark during a motor race in full view of the public.
He now has the attention of Mr. Hammer, C.E.O of Hammer industries, a company that has been trying to create suits like the iron man’s in order to sell them to the United States army. Mr. Hammer contracts the expertise of the scientists to build him those suits for the United States army, but the scientist has plans of his own.
The Tony Stark character is somewhat annoying. At one point he is addressing a crowd as he brags that; thanks to him (using the Iron Man suit) he has successfully privatised world peace. He seems to have lost the whole point behind him using the iron suit which was supposed to be used for superhero stuff. You know, like saving the world and stuff but instead the suit now appears to be serving as a bravado instrument.
In this sequel Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) conducts himself with a lot of arrogance, the same way a village show-off would if he suddenly had lots and lots of money. His personality lacks the grounded and down-to-earth aura that most super heroes have; the world knows that he is Iron Man and he feels it. You can tell that he almost feels invisible even without the Iron Man. In one scene he brags that him and the Iron Man are one, he goes to brag even further that he cannot be separated from the suit; which is the truth but there is no need to rub it in people’s faces, a little modesty would have been nice. The character is hard to like (but very easy to envy).
A lot of critics like to think that acting skills do not count for much in the super hero genre. Well, acting skills are a big deal. Only thing is that they don’t count as much as the special effects do. That is something that the people who made this movie clearly understood. Even though the effects aren’t so many, they were all well thought out, well designed and well presented. The fight scenes are beautiful and they immediately make you forget that you were being irritated by the man now wearing the suit. Like the scene where the suit unfolds and engulfs Tony Stark’s body.
Iron Man 2 is worth watching, but like all super hero movies and I mean all of them, regardless of how impressive they are, for some unexplained reason they are never better than the comics.
