Movie Review: Iron Man 2

The short of it: 4 out of 8 Nations

The long of it: Considering how much I loved the first Iron Man, I had pretty high hopes for Iron Man 2 but left the theater thinking it was just okay. I had heard about the reviews giving it a “just okay” as well, but I thought maybe I’d feel differently.

I didn’t.

Robert Downey, Jr. was awesome as Tony Stark, no denying that (nor is that surprising). The other guys in the film really didn’t make a big difference for me one way or another, although Favreau was really inserting himself into some scenes there unnecessarily I thought.

I just thought there was not enough Iron Man in the movie. We got 3 or 4 set pieces with ol’ Shellhead in it and they were all mostly very brief – the Grand Prix fight scene didn’t last long, nor did the climactic battle at the end against Whiplash. And before that, before Iron Man and War Machine fought the drones, it was mostly Iron Man flying around for the better part of 10 minutes. The longest scene with Iron Man was when him and pre-War Machine Rhodey were duking it out at Tony’s house, and that really wasn’t a geek out moment.

I like Tony Stark the character (in both the funny books and in the movies), and I like Downey playing him, so I’m not complaining about having too much Stark. I just wanted more Iron Man to go along with it.

And by the way, I’ll be kinda pissed if they decided to make the leaking heart storyline the replacement for the alcoholism one, which I’m kinda afraid they have.  Tony’s struggle with alcoholism was one of the defining moments of the character and it should not be buried under the rug.

Anyhoo, no complaints about Cheadle as Rhodey/The War Machine, and Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow. Good to see more Samuel L. Jackson/Nick Fury as well. I hope everyone stayed til after the credits and got to see the Thor teaser.