A Review of Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 is a 2010 production from Marvel Studios, directed by John Favreau, just as the first Iron Man was, but now written by Justin Theroux. Robert Downey Jr. once again shines in the movie’s main role as we see Gwyneth Paltrow return alongside new stars with the likes of Don Cheadle, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson. The movie scores a 7,0 fan rating on IMDb and received a 57 Metascore, both considerably lower than the first iteration received.

A Summary

Iron man 2 is the follow up on Tony Stark’s character from the first movie. This time Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) finds himself in trouble with a random guy he never met, instead of one of his closest friends. He needs to protect his name and legacy as both Tony Stark and Iron Man from a man crazy enough the challenge him.

And his name is Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), the son of scientist Anton Vanko, who worked together with Tony’s father, Howard Stark. However, Anton never shared in Howard’s success, because he was seen as a Russian spy and therefore sent away. Now, Ivan is determined to make Tony and the legacy of the Stark name pay for his father wrongdoings.

Meantime, Tony has been acquiring world peace with his new Iron Man suit and is at the top of the world. Even during a court hearing regarding the legality of his suit, he plays it cools and makes everybody against him look bad. His main threat in this hearing was Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) from Hammer Industries, the main competitor for Stark Industries. Tony’s friend Colonel Rhodes (Don Cheadle) tries to help him out, but it forced against it.

Tony comes away alright from the hearing, telling everybody that tech similar to his suit is decades away from being created, therefore nobody should be worried. Himself, however, is in less great condition. He is using palladium to power his arc reactor and keep himself and Iron Man alive, but it poisons his blood increasingly.

Vanko has built an arc reactor of his own to fight Tony and does so at the Monaco race track. Vanko loses but tells Tony that it wasn’t him who lost, but it was in fact, Tony. He gets imprisoned, but not for long as he is freed by Justin Hammer, who thinks he can get Vanko to build greater weapons for his company. Of course, this backfires as Vanko built weapons for his own gain.

As the blood toxicity increases during Tony’s birthday party, he gets advised by a member of his legal team, Natalie Rushman, who is, in fact, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), to go wild if he knew this was his last birthday. So, he does. He drinks too much, wears the Iron Man suit around civilian and blows up random fruits. Colonel Rhodes is done with it and puts on one of Tony’s older models as they get into a big fight, which ends with Rhodes taking the suit to the military.

The next day Tony meets Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Agent Romanoff at a doughnut shop. They have a remedy against the blood toxicity that will keep Tony alive a bit longer. The time that he is forced to spent on research to find a new element that could power his core. Tony ends up (re)discovering and creating the element.

In the final showdown, Hammer Industries is showing their new tech at the Stark Expo, filled to the brink with civilians when all the drones suddenly start attacking. Vanko has control of the software manning the drones and he starts attacking Iron Man and destroying the Expo. Tony, together with Rhodey, destroy all the drones. At that point, Vanko shows up himself, in a new suit. In the end, they manage to kill him as well as save Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) from an exploding drone.

After all this, Tony decides to join the Avengers Initiative (as a consultant, for now at least).

The Story

I think they did a much better job regarding the story if you compare it to the first Iron Man movie. They focus on one main villain and his backstory with connection to Tony is properly explained. He has good reasons to destroy the Stark legacy and seems adequately educated and trained to handle such a mission.

Where Iron Man 1 was lacking any sense of reality, Iron Man 2 takes a bit lighter approach. Of course, creating new elements is almost impossible for any one man, especially such a powerful element. However, one of the main plotlines of the movie is the fact that the government thinks the Iron Man suit should be given to the military. That something that I would expect people to ask too.

The Stark name gets pulled through the mud after the debacle at the Monaco race track, an interesting situation for Tony which leads to him starting to change his behaviour. That is one of the best parts of this movie, Tony’s growth as a human being, from ego to more sharing and caring. 

The Characters

Tony Stark / Iron Man

As I just said, Tony Stark starts this movie as an egoistic jerk. As he faces problems, with his health and career he finds out that he may need others to rely on from time to time. He needed Pepper to take over as CEO of the company because he was too busy being Iron Man. He needed S.H.I.E.L.D. to keep him alive and help him find the new element. He needed Colonel Rhodey, as his sidekick in the fight against evil.

I believe a younger Tony Stark may have tried to do all of this on his own, refusing anybody’s help. He starts out that way this movie too, but through his failures, he realises that he does need other people in his life. He kisses Pepper, he names Rhodey his sidekick and joins the Avengers. A real nice character arc for the man with an arc reactor.

Ivan Vanko

As I said before, he is one of the better villains I’ve seen. He has a good motive to fight against Tony and seems competent enough to create the weapons he uses. Speaking of weapons, his electric lasso thingies are actually really cool. They seem well designed to specifically fight Iron Man as he has a lot of trouble dealing with them. 

Furthermore, his fight with Tony isn’t a one-off as he returns after already being defeated to once again try to achieve his goal. An enemy that is a true match for Iron Man’s immense strength. Of course, with the help of a really dumb billionaire in Justin Hammer, it is easier to achieve. That is one of the worse characters I’ve seen. He is just way too naive for someone who made billions selling weapons.

The Production

As with any MCU movie, there are plenty of special effects used and the movie also won an Oscar for Best Achievement in Visual Effect. I can agree with that. Especially during the latter part of the movie with the big fight between all the drones, Tony and Ivan there were some amazingly impressive effects. An array of drones shooting rockets while flying behind Iron Man is quite a sight to enjoy for anyone interested in some action.