Iron Man 2 breaks away from the origin-tale exposition and delivers a good film.
By Sam Christopher
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
This is an excellent film. Not quite as good as the original in some ways but with a much better overall theme than the origin tale that drove the first film. My first reaction to this one was: Where’s MANDARIN!?! My second reaction was: Whiplash? Wha–? At least they had War Machine right; he just had to be here. And I also loved the intro of Black Widow to the Marvel Movie Mythos. Perhaps if they reboot the Daredevil film franchise they’ll use BW rather than Elektra. And, yes, I’ll even admit to liking Whiplash the way they made him here. With War Machine taking the place in many ways of the Crimson Dynamo I guess having Whiplash as an aggrieved Russian makes sense (could be what they’ve done with him in the comics, too, haven’t seen him in a long while). And the interplay between Tony and Pepper is fantastic here again—although I miss her being with Happy, which is just the Silver Age in me, I guess. Tony’s illness was handled very well, too, a perfect replacement for his drinking in the comics. And the continuation of the story of the Avengers Initiative, along with Tony actually holding Captain America’s shield. So many cool things to talk about.
But my favorite thing? The one thing that really made me love this story? Well, there were two. I’ll deal with the last one first. In the epilogue, when the car was driving in the sand I thought I knew, but I wasn’t really sure until Colton (or is it Coleston? One thing I do know for sure: I shouldn’t be wondering what this guy’s name is because it should be Jasper SITWELL!) pulled out his phone. I knew what he was going to say and I knew what he would be talking about. Fan-FREAKIN’-tastic! Just a (wait for it) marvelous way to end a film. I love it, I love it, I. Love. It. My only problem is the wait we have now. But that’s all right. Sorry, I know I’m being very elliptical here but this spoiler you really shouldn’t have. It’s really much cooler for you to see it yourself.
Earlier in the film, though, there is the thing I’ve always wanted to see. Industrialist Tony Stark, a man who has done all manner of things throughout his life that have made his fellow citizens more comfortable and safer, is called before a Senate Committee and ordered to turn over the product of his genius to the “public”—in other words, to the government—and he says, “No”. He then proceeds to show the hearing for the sham it is by proving that the government’s “weapons expert” Justin Hammer (who in the comics was the Iron Monger from the first film) was not only an incompetent fool whose main technical ability was his knack for schmoozing and buying government officials, but that he was also complicit in some of the attempts at duplication of the ARC technology that powers Stark’s armor. Hilarious. Later, this theme is continued when Jim Rhodes is ordered to confiscate the armor and Hammer first weaponizes it, then uses Ivan Vanko’s (Whiplash, who Hammer had broken out of prison because of Vanko’s beat-down of Tony in Manaco) technology to create a virtual army of “Iron Drones”. Vanko, of course, has a way of taking control of the drones and the War Machine armor, figuring to use them to murder Stark no matter who gets in the way. So, we have the selfish capitalist protecting the world and doing everything he can to save as many people as he can while the great collective of the government employs the architect of our deaths. Luckily for the Marvel Universe, Tony Stark didn’t shrug.
I do have one negative to report about the film, though. In the credits, the music section? They list all the songs in the film and one of them is AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”. They list current frontman Brian Johnson as one of the writers of the song. He wasn’t a member of the band when they made that album; that was Bon Scott. Well, two negatives: I am still looking for the Mandarin. Maybe next time.
But the Iron Man 2 Soundtrack by AC/DC from Amazon.com:
