Iron Man 2 - The Sequel

I reviewed the first movie of the Iron Man trilogy last night, and now I will turn my attention to the second film in this successful trilogy. The film stars the first thespians as the first film, and adds Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke as the films villains, replacing Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle, and Adding Scarlett Johanssen and Samuel L Jackson as members of S.H.I.E.L.D. Although not quite as strong as its predecessor, this film has a lot to offer.

This film continues with the character of Nick Fury who was introduced in Iron Man, and is the director of S.H.I.E.L.D, this film does a pretty good job of reintroducing the character of Fury who was introduced in the post credits sequence. This introduction maintains continuity with this sequence, whilst also giving an explanation to the audience members who declined to stay for the post credits sequence. Scarlett Johanssen plays Natasha Romanov AKA Natalie Rushmore AKA Black Widow. Black Widow is pretty awesome, she can fight, she has red hair and she speaks latin.

Mickey Rourke plays the villain in this film, a russian immigrant who pirates a version of the Iron Man suit which includes huge whips that are electrified. The other villain is a businessman who owns a company which is a rival of Stark Enterprises, and which attempts to replicate the famous suit. The film also shows the rise of James Rhodes into war machine, a role that he continues in the next installment. The film is smart in that it creates an epic battle with multiple villains, whilst never allowing its audience to become confused, and without requiring too much time for the introduction of all these characters. This is done with the use of drones, the films villain played by Sam Rockwell creates a series of drones, supposedly for use in the military, this means that we do not need to introduce any characters, yet we are given a satisfying and exciting climax.

 The places where this film fails is in it's script, despite having a fun and uncomplicated story the impossible hiring of Pepper Potts as CEO and the distinct lack of character development, notably in the character of Stark, in the first film we are shown his weaknesses in addition to his failures, and we care about him as a person, and a character. In this film the only weaknesses we are shown are physical, and although these things are pretty terrible, they don't make us empathize with his character, and we ultimately feel an ambivolence towards him, the final battle sequence although thrilling, also fails to put Iron Man into any real danger, and there is not a single moment in which we start to question our faith in our hero.

Overall this is a good film yet one which fails to live up to its predecessor, it shows good performances and a good story yet a lack of character development and a good yet short final battle make this a poor follow up to a great movie, a good try yet one which ultimately falls short Rating: B