Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Iron Man 2

As promise I saw Iron Man 2 a lot this weekend. I like to see movies multiple times, at least good ones.

I honestly think Iron Man 2 improves on repeat viewings. The first film is pretty simple in terms of plot – Tony Stark is captured in Afghanistan, has a change of heart about his life, creates Iron Man & comes home to skeptics while still trying to save the day. Iron Man 2 becomes much more complex.

In this film Tony isn’t recovering from PTSD, he’s suffering from something else entirely – his ego. Tony is no longer just a billionaire playboy, he’s internationally famous for being Iron Man and his ego can’t be checked by any of his friends. Pepper is trying to run Stark Industries, but all she does is put out Iron Man’s media fires, and Rhodes is feeling the pain of being part of the military until that wants nothing more than to pry the Iron Man technology from Tony for use in the military. As if those character archs weren’t enough you have Justin Hammer, a business rival to Tony that is trying to take his place in the the government arms race and Ivan Vanko who places all of his families misfortune on Tony. Then there’s SHIELD who is torn between recruiting Tony for the Avenger Initiative and keeping a close eye on his reckless behavior.

Nick Fury finally gets a decent amount of screen time in this film and I am already loving Samuel L. Jackson’s turn as the head Avenger. If it’s possible for a man to be sassy and masculine, I’d say that word fits Nick Fury. He is a dangerous man with attitude and Jackson holds his own nicely against Downey.

The film goes out of IMAX soon, so I am debating seeing Iron Man 2 a fourth time within the next week…

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