The Case for the Ironing Board

Could Iron Man 2 ever have been as good as the original Iron Man? Well, only if they did not mess with the winning formula of the original: wall-to-wall Robert Downey Junior. And so of course, they did.

Mickey Rourke plays a great broken man. Sam Rockwell plays an annoying conceited man infuriatingly well. And Scarlett Johansen pouts and fills out a tight leather catsuit admirably. The only problem with all of these things in Iron Man 2 is that there is too much of them, and too little of Robert Downey Junior (to be known as RDJ for the rest of this posting).

I blame the fact that the film makers were trying to inject plot and some depth to their supporting characters. The fact that the writers fail in this as well as robbing the audience of RDJ time is downright criminal. Who cares about the power struggle that goes on between industrialist Hammer and brilliant inventor Ivan Vanko? All we need to know is that they are in cahoots and that they are out to get Tony Stark, and then they really should just get on with it.

That is not to stay Stark’s storyline is any the more well executed. It’s not. Actually, it’s quite stupid, but made bearable and enjoyable because it puts RDJ on the screen, acting all arrogant and narcissistic, dropping devastating one liners at the speed of light, valiantly combating desk ornaments and batting eyelids at a fairly superfluous Gwenyth Paltrow, who returns again as the long suffering yet highly appealing EA Pepper Potts (incidentally, in the credits, Ms Paltrow appeared to be the only one needing a personal trainer for the film). There are nods to most of the remaining characters from the first film, though the awesome Don Cheadle takes over the Rhodes/War Machine character, as the previous actor… well, apparently he was more like a real life Tony Stark though his presence on the film was not deemed as necessary by others than him.

Eventually, after much fluffing about – broken up by guest appearances by Garry Shandling as an evil Senator (whose stiffness of face was a bit distracting, though I am not sure if this was caused by the lenses, an illness or cosmetic surgery, or all three) and by Samuel L Jackson, not quoting god as Fury but still sporting a big attitude – things actually happen. Or rather, things go bang. Yes! And I will leave it at that.

Having missed out on the “post credit teaser” last time, I sat through the half hour of credits to bear witness to what turned out to be a complete anticlimax and thus a complete waste of time – mainly because, again, they took one vital ingredient out of the formula. And minus that ingredient, no matter what or who else you may throw in to that mix, the result will probably always be disappointing.

Verdict: For all my criticism, I really quite enjoyed this film. It’s not as good as the first Iron Man, and the reason for that is clear: there is less RDJ. Iron Man may be a superhero film, but the hero of this franchise is RDJ. It will be interesting to see if diluting him in a pot of Avengers will still result in an amazing movie, but whenever he takes centre stage in this film, Iron Man 2 soars. 7.5 super suits out of 10.