Iron Man 2

Back in 2008 Iron Man was a pleasant surprise, a block buster that was witty and enjoyable, with decent effects, action sequences and, despite a two hour running time, it never dragged. It comes as quite a surprise then that, with all the original elements intact, Iron Man 2 completely falls for the sequelitus disease. Bigger? Yes. Faster? Yes. Better? Not a chance. Though not as bad as Spiderman 3, this still suffers from being far too bloated in terms of characters and plots and its dragging its heels way before its limp ending. Robert Downey Jr reprises the title role and does a decent job as he portrays Tony Stark becoming more reckless and arrogant. In the film he also has to contend with a number of new villains, the main threat being Mickey Rourke’s Ivan Vanko. Though Rourke has fun chewing up the scenery with his slav-russian accent, he doesn’t inject much personality into proceedings. In fact, this is a problem with a lot of the film. Gwenth Paltrow as Pepper Potts is as bland as they come (and scarcely believable as the head of Stark Industries) and her banter with Downey Jr now just grates more than anything. Worst of all though is Don Cheadle spectacularly mis-cast as War Machine. It’s no secret that he was rushed into the role (see the internet for the whole Terrance Howard story) but he takes on Paltrow in an unofficial competition to see who can be the most unbelievable character in the film. At least Sam Rockwell appears at his slimy best and Garry Shandling provides a few welcome laughs as a miserable senator. Obviously it can’t be all bad, and director Jon Favreau does start the film at a decent pace, including a fantastic sequence on a face track where Ivan first encounters Stark. It doesn’t last long though, and as the film becomes, in relative terms, more and more fantasy, it becomes less believable and harder to care about what happens. I think the biggest problem between the two films as that whilst both films are obviously based on the comic, the first film, despite the comic elements, felt like it had a basis in reality due to strong characterisation. As this film ends with hundreds of “Iron Men” flying across the sky followed by the weakest climatic showdown for quite a while you can only feel the screenwriters just went for the most standard and least original finish they could think of and waited for the money to roll in regardless.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
More is less as the saying goes and Iron Man 2 is iron proof of this. Rating: 5/10