Erroneous Man

I saw Iron Man 2 the other day, along with hundreds of thousands of my closest friends. As the first major blockbuster of '10 summer season, this film had a lot riding on it and it delivered where it counted for the mass audiences. Explosions, high action and an increasingly less clothed Scarlet Johansson makes it ideal fodder for the average movie-goer. And really, can you ask more from a super hero movie?

I'm of the opinion that you can. We've seen excellent superhero comic book adaptations in the last few years that have raised the bar on what we should demand from our mindless entertainments. Stuff like The Dark Knight shows us that we can get interesting character studies and themes out of a story which involves a man dressed as a bat fighting a clown. Or, in the case of the original Iron Man, can craft an incredibly watchable and funny protagonist while still adhering to enough action movie tropes to classify as a summer blockbuster. Iron Man 2 is straight up missing the soul present in the first film. Much less present is the quip-master Robert Downey Jr. and in his place is more brainless, hard-to-follow action sequences. What action exists is good but it doesn't eliminate the fact that the best parts of the original film took place outside of the suit and this one just doesn't cut it.

Strong support comes in the form of Mickey Rourke as a disgruntled Russian scientist obsessed with enacting revenge on the Stark name and Sam Rockwell as a rival arms dealer with more sinister ambitions but these are balanced out by the inclusion of Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson as future members of the Avengers movie we will get in a few years. These two feel tacked on and act like it, too. To say that this film felt like a stepping stone towards this bigger film is pretty accurate. I do applaud the inclusion of Don Cheadle as War Machine rather than Terrance Howard in this edition, as Cheadle has chops that Howard just could not muster. In the end, very little actually occurs in this film and Stark is not examined as a character in any meaningful matter. Perhaps if they had actually decided to film his struggle with alcoholism instead of some ridiculous special disease of his own invention I might be more inclined to look past the downplayed presence Downey Jr. had in this film. As it stands, though, he plays second fiddle to fancy special effects and loosely strung together plot about nothing.

All this said, though, Iron Man 2 is not a bad film. Far from it. It is only disappointing in the fact that it reverts back to a state that it's predecessor overcame. Iron Man managed to make a superhero movie devoid of pretention and full of fun. Iron Man 2 plays out like an unnecessary sequel written by someone who really just wants to get on with the many other Marvel storylines. As a start to the summer season, it's fair. It will be very interesting to see where the rest of the next four months take us. I am cautiously optimistic about it all. Cautiously.