*Originally written January 1st, 2016*
Well, it certainly isn't as good as the first Iron Man, or most of the other Marvel films for that matter. I remember this sucking, but I actually liked it more than I remember. Don't get me wrong, it's quite messy and arguably bland, but at the same time pretty entertaining.
This time around, Tony Stark must deal with his failing health and a crazy Russian guy who wants to kill him while the government want their hands on his Iron Man technology.
It deals with Tony's alcoholism laughably and there is some awful drunk acting here, not that Robert Downey Jr's performance was bad (He was once again excellent), it just portrayed alcoholism in just a terrible and unrealistic way and led to some of the worst moments of the film like the dance fight. That said, I did love the arc of Tony dealing with the fact he might die due to his arc reactor poisoning him, it was nice to see Stark genuinely scared for once.
Mickey Rourke pops up as the villain this time around as a Russian who wants revenge on Tony for what his father did to his father years ago. I don't know how much to criticise a hammy comic-book accent, because Rourke's Russian accent was laughably terrible and so many of his lines were incomprehensible. He did get some solid action scenes, the race track fight is really awesome and I loved the design of his character with the electric whips that look like a weapon from the Ratchet and Clank games. I was severely disappointed at how the ending turned out, it was far too similar to the first, the bad guy gets his own Iron Man suit and must fight him......
Sam Rockwell is also a side villain here, who is funny and I love Rockwell, but he didn't make for a convincing or compelling villain for one second. Brody (Recast by Don Cheadle) is also given a much more significant role this time too, getting to don (eh?) the War Machine armour and actually help in the final set-piece.
We get to meet Natasha Romonoff/Black Widow for the first time and she wasn't given much to do bar an awesome action scene towards the end. She just didn't seem like the same Black Widow from the later Marvel films at all. Odd.
There was quite a bit of world building here. I think that's what a lot of people took issue with when this first came out, it spent too much time hinting at something greater. Samuel L Jackson was excellent here as Nick Fury in his first proper role outside a post-credits cameo, he seemed much more Samuel L Jackson than I remember him being in the later films. He is essentially here to try and recruit Tony into the Avengers Initiative despite his out of control behaviour and recklessness. We also got a post-credits stinger of Thor's hammer leading into the next film Marvel has to offer.
I will mention I did find it a lot funnier than the first, the court scene at the beginning was well written and hilarious, easily the best moment of the film, it's just a shame they couldn't keep up to the quality of that scene.
It has its moments and is a breezy, entertaining watch and contains lots of elements that made the first film so great, but Iron Man 2 is a huge step down from the last film in the series and is one of Marvel's weakest films to date.
6/10 Dans
Iron Man 2 is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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