Sunday, May 16, 2010

Movie Review - Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 - **


Directed by:  Jon Favreau

Starring:  Robert Downey, Jr. Gwyneth Paltrow, Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle

Review:  I was pretty underwhelmed by this movie.  It has been my experience that the comic book movies that are good take the material seriously.  They don't make too many 'in-jokes' and they don't try to get too "cute" with what they do.  Unfortunately, this movie doesn't have those characteristics.

The movie centers around the character we all know, Mr. Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man.  This movie is a little different than the previous version because the world knows that Tony Stark is Iron Man and this fact is celebrated by not only Stark, but the American public.  The main storyline involves the government and one specific competitive weapons company trying to get their hands on the "Iron Man weapon."  This causes Tony Stark to go on the defensive and convince the government of why Iron Man should only be with him and shouldn't be allowed to be mass produced as a weapon.

The rest of the movie centers on people trying to steal the suit since Stark won't just give it up.  This causes Stark to start to question himself and his life for a bit and makes for some interesting situations.  Unfortunately this is where this movie starts to unravel a little bit for me.



I have never liked the idea of a super hero whose secret identity is not only known but embraced.  This is the way Tony Stark is, even to the point where he will get drunk and put on the Iron Man suit at a party. This is where it gets out of hand, the movie needs to take itself and it's subject matter seriously.  Now, I was never a huge Iron Man fan, but I enjoyed it and watched the cartoon series.  However, I don't remember Tony Stark being like this.  I remember him being a business man, not some overgrown fratboy genius.

Unfortunately for me, this is a weakness this movie has that I just can't seem to get over.  Not to mention the fact that this movie tries to throw in way too many characters and none of the actors seem to really be more interested in anything besides being in a big budget movie and getting a huge payday.  They also seem to be way too interested in setting up "The Avengers" movie, which I am not all that interested in.

Ultimately, the movie was decently entertaining with solid special effects and a storyline that could have been good.  However, the movie needed to be more certain of itself and realize where it needed to go, which I don't feel like it did and instead found itself oversaturated with it's own movie-ness.  At the end of the day, I would wait till cable for this one cause it's not really worth your time.

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