I am wearing my several years old Iron Man shirt bought off of Superherostuff.com and I realized gleefully an hour into the film that my old shirt had become the new suit model, the circle arc reactor replaced with a triangular one. So, quite incidentally, I have worn a shirt far more relevant even than those sold currently a week after the movie's release. Sadly, this did not make my enjoyment of the film increase much. I was disappointed, to be honest.
The film gets off to a rather slow start and only feels like it gets going when Terrence Howard replacement Don Cheadle appears on the scene. He commands roughly as much attention as the actor he replaced, that is to say, not very much. As we saw in the first Iron Man, Downey Jr steals the camera as well as the attention. The only problem with that here is that in the first film, we were watching the redemption of Tony Stark. This time, his awkward bipolar attention deficit disorder has nothing to remedy it, and I found it incredibly hard to route for him. I was rooting for the un-named villain captured in a very weak cage by Mickey Rourke. I know his name is Whiplash, and that's a damn good name for a villain! Why was it left out? This bothered me.
Second annoyance was Justin Hammer. Now, I'm a fan of Sam Rockwell so I'm going to lay the blame on the writing here. Was he supposed to be annoying and stupid? Probably, but this was a bit much. His masterwork weapon being a dud would've been funny if the movie's main villain were not as much of a dud. The final action scenes were uninspired, with one notable exception: Scarlett Johansson. I was expecting to hate her, and I loved her. A Russian accent would have been nice but I can chalk that up to her being incognito, or some other espionage related reason. Her action scenes were well-done, brief but not too short, and filled with the perfect balance of martial arts and high tech gadgetry. This makes me wish for a Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos film, but I know that's not going to happen.
Third annoyance was the damn Captain America shield cameo. It was thrown in, it was not funny, and the adamantium/vibranium shield looked like it was made of aluminum can remnants. If they're trying to build excitement for the Cap film, this is not how to do it.
Now, the theme of Iron Man 2 is legacy, much like the theme of Iron Man 1 was redemption, and Iron Man 2 is a sequel, which would seem to make legacies implied anyways, but whatever, that's nitpicking. Iron Man 2 does give a legacy to Iron Man 1, but it isn't what it deserved. Sure, there are a few moments of downright badassery, but they were few and far between. While the first film was carried on Tony's shoulders, this film survives only on the strength of the supporting cast. Cheadle is boring but at least he's not Stark. Happy is wonderful. Pepper is easy to sympathize with and frankly, adorable. Nick Fury is Samuel L. Jackson, which is enough. Natasha Romanoff is more entertaining than anyone else in the film, and I'm not saying that for her appearance.
The jokes are few, and not that funny. The action is watchable, but not really at that level of cinema awesome that makes something timeless. The drama seems phoned in. It may be that I'm being a tad bit harsh towards that film, but the first film was really, really good! If this film is about legacy, it isn't very much of one for its predecessor.
*** out of *****
P.S. The after credits scene was more satisfying than the entire film. I'm looking forward to Thor.
