Iron Man 2 (2010) review

            Iron Man 2, this one is either the best marvel film of phase one of the cinematic universe or the worst. Fans normally bunch this one in with Thor as one of the weakest films the MCU has to offer, I respectfully disagree. Iron Man 2 continues the story of Tony Stark while bringing more light to the fact that the Avengers are on the horizon. New character, Natalie Rushman, also known as Natasha Romanoff, also known as Black Widow, is introduced, and right away you know she’s a female fighter who’s not meant to be crossed. She’s down to earth, authoritative, and she looks good while doing all she has to in order to keep Tony Stark in line.

            The character of James “Rhodey” Rhodes, (now played by Don Cheadle) is given more dimension, and generally more to do as he helps to handle the governmental powers Tony has to deal with. Now that the world is aware he’s Iron Man, Stark is fighting for control over whether or not the Iron Man armor is turned over to the military, or stays his and only his. Within this tangle and battle for balance, Rhodey of course, dawns, and by dawns I mean steels, an iron Man suit of his own that in turn becomes the war machine armor thanks to a little military tinkering.

            Then there’s the new villain Ivan Vanko, played by Mikey Rourke. Rourke is another actor who had his career as an actor made relevant again, if only for a short time, thanks to comic book movies. Although Rourke had a resurgence only for a short time, you can see him putting great effort into the role of the villain in this movie. Personally I buy him as a Russian robotics engineer for the short time we get to know his character. Although it hurts the character that we never get to see him as a real threat to Tony Stark, when all we get is one attack scene, and seeing him locked in a room for a good two thirds of this movie.

            Although I enjoy this installment to the iron man franchise I will admit that this movie suffers from too many new side characters that eat up a ton of screen time that could have been used for character development. Although it’s never a mistake to cast or utilize talented actors, how and where you place these actors in your film, and for how long can make or break your movie. The film sets a plot in the first half hour of this movie, it deviates from that plot to flesh out characters like Nick Fury, and Black Widow, and then it comes back to that main plot after the third act’s already begun. And even though this hurts the film, I honestly can’t tell you what I would have done differently. Marvel Studios knew what they wanted to do, and movies that have a place in a larger universe are difficult to produce when you are working with stories within stories. Therefore, it’s great to see that they came away with something as coherent as they did despite all of the movie’s flaws.

            Iron Man 2 accomplishes what it set out to do, it took the story of Tony Stark into its next chapter, and it brought attention to the Avengers. It helped to expand the Marvel Movie Universe, and it made bank which is everything studio executives care about… sad but true. Aside from the this Iron Man 2 is nothing short of a fun and energetic ride!