Iron Man 2

 

Iron Man (the first movie) was all about Iron Man and being totally awesome. Its successor is about Iron Man and a bunch of other super-sexy people, including the wonderfully presented Scarlett Johansson, whose name is often difficult to spell correctly. One might think that this visual feast might take over the film and turn it into a Transformers-esque mess; this isn’t the case.

I’ve heard quite a few people talk about how the movie is a sprawling, hard-to-follow mess with too much going on. However, they always go on to say that they enjoyed it anyway. Personally, I didn’t think it was that hard to follow, and it was nowhere near the atrocity of Spiderman III. There were a lot of characters. Downey’s acting and his vocal interplay with several of the supporting characters was just brilliant, and god dangit Scarlett is good at looking good, even if her actual acting wasn’t anything to get all that excited about. Mickey Rourke did a better job at playing a Russian dude than I expected. Sam Rockwell did a great job playing the dick, and got quite a few laughs out of me.

The main thing that made this movie great was the comedy. Unlike the other great comic-book movie of our time, The Dark Knight, the Iron Man movies are actually comical, and it works. Really well. When I wasn’t grinning ear-to-ear at the awesomely executed actions scenes, I was laughing hysterically at the many jokes, be they nerdy, double entendre, or just plain silly. This is how you do a funny superhero movie, not Batman & Robin.

Altogether I agree that it isn’t as good as its predecessor. It is, however, really good, and better than the first one in a lot of places. I suppose it could have shined a little brighter if the scope of the story had been lessened a little. I don’t think it hurt the film as much as other people are saying though. I do think the omission of AC/DC would have been a good idea. Stick to Sabbath.

Also, this is one of those movies where you need to stay through the credits. Especially all you NERDS.