REVIEW: Overstuffed Iron Man 2 Needs More Downey, Less Dazzle

Movieline Score:

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At least there's a dash of wit here and there. My favorite gag in Iron Man 2 is a relatively subtle one: As Rockwell's slick shyster wines and dines Rourke's Russian baddie, he waves his hands about flamboyantly, revealing that his palms are stained orange with self-tanner -- it's the telltale mark of a vain boob. Rourke, a slab of leonine beefcake, is amusing to watch, particularly when he requests that Rockwell fetch his pet cockatiel from Russia: "I want my boooord," he demands in his faux-Russian kitty-cat purr. And Johansson has been outfitted in an array of comic-book curvy pencil skirts and tight button-down shirts whose buttons seem barely adequate to the task at hand (they must be equipped with iron buttonholes).

The actors might be having fun here, but it's hard to tell: We get to see so little of any of them as they whir through the movie's perpetually revolving door. Then again, do your secondary characters have to amount to much when you've got Downey as your star? I'd argue that they do. Downey is a receptive actor. He doesn't bounce off the energy of the actors around him; he absorbs it and sends it back out into the world, giving something of himself with it, which is part of what makes him great. But with Iron Man 2, he may have taken the role of Tony Stark as far as he can go with it. His lines consist mostly of rapid-fire quips that sound semi-improvised, and they're fun at first. When Paltrow's Pepper Potts accuses him of Googling Johansson's character, he shoots back, with mock innocence, "I thought I was ogling her."

But Downey doesn't have to do much with these lines except show up to say them. And somehow, even though he's the star of this show, he's also curiously absent from it. The special effects in Iron Man 2 -- which include a multi-iron-giant showdown, replete with lots of loud clanging and lacerating lasers -- have the requisite amount of dazzle. Yet when it comes to dazzle, how do we know what the requisite amounts are? The big problem with Iron Man 2, maybe, is that it so dutifully gives the people what they want, instead of giving them what they didn't know they wanted.

The movie's best moment is a throwaway one: Frustrated and angry with himself, Stark pitches a basket of strawberries he's bought for Pepper into an office trash can (he's forgotten she's allergic to them). He stumbles a little, and half the berries go tumbling onto the floor -- Downey turns the moment into a spontaneous miniature dance, and it frees him. There's not much room for that kind of freedom in the tightly wound and overpacked spectacle of Iron Man 2. This time, Downey is just the man in the iron mask.

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Comments

  • Krugmanic Depressive says:

    Iron Man comes
    on little jet feet.
    His foes enter
    to scowl and kvetch.
    Rising on titanium haunches
    he then kicks ass.

  • Alex says:

    It's the same problem that seems to plague all comic book movie sequels -- they add too many characters and sub plots. The first movie is often good (sometimes great) cause they generally have 2 plot lines (the origin and the main antagonist) and a base cast.
    But then the sequels come in and you have new characters popping up all over the place that don't need to be there. And instead of have 1 or 2 plot lines you wind up with 3 or 4 to cover the new allies and multiple antagonists. There isn't enough time in a two hour movie to give enough depth to so many plot lines.

  • Morgo says:

    The self-tanner on the hands wasn't really funny (or subtle). I sat there for 30 seconds watching the actor demonstrating his orange palms wondering why a multibillionare would choose to apply tan himself instead of getting a professional to do it. For me it added to, not subtracted from, the overall crappiness of the movie.

  • HI Stephanie Zacharek I agree with you it's really over stuffing the characters in Iron Man 2 rather then in IM 1 But any how it will rock the theater this time ...

  • MC D-Lyte says:

    Iron Man 2: Full Throttle was so awesome! It was like the all time best sequel Charlies Angels: Full Throttle but like at least two times better than that. How is that even possible right? Charlies Angels was so awesome. Well Iron Man 2 is even more awesomer. http://j.mp/d54uWH

  • Rich Yan says:

    If someone wanted to read a review of IM2 I'd have them read this one. It's fairly well on the mark for me. Other than it doesn't mention how utterly annoying Sam Rockwell was as Justin Hammer. I know I'm not supposed to like the character but he was making me hate the movie.

  • Shaun says:

    I didn't like the sequel as much the original. I agree that they definitely did put to much going on in the movie. On top of that we saw people in what seemed like hours do what should have take weeks or months. It seemed a bit rushed to me. But getting ready for Avengers next year I wanted to watch all the movies leading up to it so I watched Iron Man 2on DISH online on the Epix page. One nice thing about having a service like that is being able to go back and watch movies when they are available. If they would have left some of the sub plots out it might have felt not as rushed, but what can we do now other then look back at what could have been. I thought Mickey Rourke played an excellent role in the film, and I agree with Rich that Sam Rockwell made his part more then annoying. Don Cheadle didn't match that par at all either. But I think when they change a main character like that in a sequel that actor will always get the stick put on them. All in all I think they were building too much for the future movie instead of focusing on this one, they left way to much out and expect people just to dismiss what they left out.