RETRO-REVIEW: Iron Man 2

“Welcome back,” says Tony Stark as he emerges from his Iron Man suit after a thrilling entrance at the Stark Expo.  With the same breath, Robert Downey Jr. is also welcoming us back to the Avengers prequels after a two-year gap.  There have been some changes in Iron Man’s world since we saw him last, however.  He’s battling blood poisoning, he’s facing inquiries from the government, and his best friend now looks like Don Cheadle instead of Terrence Howard.  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” Tony says at a congressional hearing.  “Well, it’s me, and I’m here,” fires back Cheadle-Rhodes, “so get over it and move on.”

These meta-moments get Iron Man 2 off to exactly the right start.  The rest of the film’s two hours fails to live up to the promise of its beginning, however.  Iron Man 2 wants us to see the growth of S.H.I.E.L.D., wants us to watch Stark battling both for his life and for control of his greatest creation, and wants to introduce us to a bevy of new characters – Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson), Whiplash (Mickey Rourke), and Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) foremost among them.  This leads to an over-packed, underdone script and a disjointed, occasionally haphazard film.  The most frustrating thing for me, though, is that all the material was here to make a movie that was not only a good sequel, but an outstanding movie in its own right.  With some judicious plot-pruning and a little re-directed emphasis, Iron Man 2 could have been the best of the Avengers films.  Instead, it’s…well, not the worst, perhaps, but certainly the one I dislike the most.

Where to begin?  Well, let’s start with the biggest problem:  the theme.