I was right.
If you believe all the tosh that's been bandied around about it being as awful as SpiderMan 3 and completely disjointed and non-functioning as a story, let me first tell you that those ideas are wrong, false, pretence and deceitful. Iron Man 2 is a very good film.
It's very good, but not excellent in the manner that Iron Man was, for one simple reason. It's been done before. Iron Man was so good because it was a hit and something new rolled into one, something no one had seen before and in the beginning only a small audience was keen on seeing and looking forward to. It revealed to us Tony Stark and the whole Marvel vision that everybody fell in love with.
So we knew what we were dealing with and as a whole the film couldn't take us by surprise by slapping us in the face with a chest laser of awesomeness. Which is possibly (probably) why the critics and the message boards went crazy with the idea that Iron Man 2 was going to be the biggest pile of arbitrary plotlines and gratuitous wank cinema has ever seen, when in fact it is every bit as good a film as the first it just doesn't have the jump on us.
Don't get me wrong, I went into this film conditioned by the internet to be completely unable to feel anything towards it except despise every minute. And trust me, when I was overheating and viewing the film through one eye that wouldn't stop watering and one which honestly was protruding about an inch further from my face than it should of been, I was in no mood to cut the film slack. It just isn't a bad film, and the multiple plotlines work.
These four characters:
War Machine
Justin Hammer
Nick Fury
Black Widow
all fit really well with the main story, and Mickey Rourke's Ivan Vanko is every bit as badass as the few frames of chuckling Russian physicist/hardman in the trailer would suggest. The key thing to the four above characters working, rather than having a Hobgoblin/ Venom/ Sandman twisted triangle a la SpiderMan 3 or anything like the mess the last Pirates film devolved into is the writing, and the stars being perfectly happy to act out what's on the paper and in the fucking script instead of getting all Hollywood on Favruea's arse like so many of those vapid divas do. Scarlett Johansson is barely in the film. Same with Samuel L. Jackson, who at least will be sticking around having secured a nine film deal while Marvel whips the franchise into shape (more on that later). And Sam Rockwell, who I've only ever seen as a moustachioed pussy who comes good (Galaxy Quest) or a horrendous reimagining of Zaphod Beedlebrox in the Martin Freeman roadshow (The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy) really plays up his role as the wannabe Stark. Also, War Machine/ Jimmy Rhodes fits neatly into the main narrative and manages to get Tony on the straight and narrow while being all deep and meaningful in terms of Rhodey and an out of control Stark falling apart.
That's not to say the film isn't without faults, ye gods no, but when they crop up they are few and far between and easy to overlook. It isn't, for example, completely explained how Rhodey gets to use the suit he steals from Stark (the Mark II) when he doesn't have an Arc Reactor in his chest, but then if you look closely at the Air Force base the reactor is in the suit. Nor is it explained how War Machine can talk to Iron Man when presumably the comm system is locked down by Vanko along with all the other systems, but perhaps Vanko (who in all honesty looks a bit nuts) didn't think of closing the channel or even enjoyed a helpless Rhodey trying to guide Stark away from the shit loads of weapons he's carrying. And yeah, the 'boss fight' at the end was a bit short, but personally I'm sick of mindless violence in films for no reason. The fight with the drones had gone on long enough, bringing Vanko/ Whiplash down to size was suitably short and sweet, he was a broken supervillain better with his brain than his frankly shitely designed whips.
And yes, the 'new element' for the Arc Reactor subplot seemed convenient and smacked mreo than a little of nostalgic 'daddy loved me really vibes', but to say it's a plothole is nonsense. Stark Sr left the message for Stark Jr simply to perfect the Arc Reactor, saying the technology of his time prevented the Reactor ever being the world changer it could be. He did not, repeat, did not dream up the new element to save his son's life when he couldn't possibly know he'd have a Reactor and paladium in his chest, it was just a coincidental result, and for me it worked fine.
So there was more right than wrong with this film, and the ongoing elements of SHIELD, Fury and the upcoming Avengers film slid neatly and nicely into the film's standalone narrative, even giving us a tasty little treat at the end if you stayed after the credits. Sorry for the blurry screencap, and possible spoilers. If you don't know what the image below means, or get a little kick in the gut when you see it, then you should seriously look up the words hammer, god and Branagh in a search engine. Then get excited.
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