Iron Man 2 (2010)

Let’s get this over with right away: it’s not as cool as the first one. The first Iron Man movie came out of nowhere, harnessed a beloved but minor comic franchise to a loosey-goosey script, some nifty CGI, and a knockout performance from Robert Downey, Jr., and was good beyond all reason. That’s hard to sustain. The movies provide their own analogy, though: people are always trying to knock off Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit and its ‘arc-reactor’ power source but never quite get there. Iron Man 2 is the same way: it lacks the genius of the original, but it’s certainly powerful enough to do some (box-office) damage.

Iron Man 2 finds inventor-turned-superhero Tony Stark (Downey) facing troubling times. Yes, his high-powered robosuit is a smashing success, and, yes, he’s ditched that usual hero standby, the secret identity—so he gets, as it were, the power and the glory. But pressures are mounting. His company is floundering while Tony flies off to fight evil. A government panel led by Senator Stern (a pompous Garry Shandling) wants Stark to bring Iron Man under government control. Rival weapons-maker Justin Hammer (the always-welcome Sam Rockwell) is sniffing around for a piece of the Iron Pie. And those are just the obvious menaces: lurking in Russia is the embittered Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), the son of a former colleague of Tony’s father, whose knack for physics is matched only by his drive for revenge. And lurking in Tony’s own blood are toxins leaking in from the nuclear element that powers his suit—being Iron Man is literally killing Mr. Stark.

He has a solution for the company problem: promoting his ever-practical assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) to CEO of Stark Industries. And Stern and Hammer can be put off with some deft word-and-tech work. That only goes so far, though—and the hidden menaces are harder to manage. Fortunately, Tony has some help: there’s his good friend Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) to back him up in the firepower department, and his own government friends at the secret ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ agency—headed by no-nonsense Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)—to help Stark find his place in the world order. Also in Stark’s corner are faithful valet-cum-boxer Happy Hogan (director Jon Favreau, donning his actor hat) and new assistant Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson), who seems to have a few more skills than are listed on her resume.

There’s a lot going on here, and perhaps because of that this movie takes itself a bit more seriously than its predecessor. Iron Man felt slightly subversive, but this sequel pretty firmly plants itself in conventional superhero movie territory. Events seem to matter more this time around, and the emotions are pitched a little higher. Director Favreau manages a deft enough touch to keep things from becoming too heavy, though (let’s not forget he helmed Swingers and Elf). And while I’m growing a bit weary of CGI-metal bodies clanking against each other, there are some real rushes to be had from some of the obligatory action sequences. The one in which Vanko, sporting arc-reactor-powered laser whips, ambushes Stark at a Monaco racetrack and a later sequence where Stark and Rhodes have a party quarrel while wearing robosuits each provide a different kind of genuine pleasure.

The strength of this movie, like its predecessor, is in the acting. Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux are themselves both actors, and so it’s no surprise that this is a superhero franchise that gives us real characters to get to know and not just weird names in suits. Downey is the human arc-reactor that powers the film, slipping easily back into the role of Tony Stark as if he never left it (to, for example, play Sherlock Holmes). Downey’s whipcrack verbal timing conveys Stark’s arrogance while the look in his big dark eyes suggests some of the inner demons at work in Tony’s psyche. Favreau apparently likes to let his actors improvise, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that more of Stark onscreen comes from Downey himself than from the script. The actor gets this guy, through and through, and that alone goes a long way toward selling the movie. It doesn’t hurt a bit that Downey is abetted by such an able supporting cast. Paltrow once again makes Pepper the sweet superego to Stark’s id, and, making the most of the rather thankless part of Stark’s other conscience, Don Cheadle ably replaces an equally underused Terrence Howard from the first film as ‘Rhodey.’ Jackson gets to try yet another version of his familiar bad-mutha-shut-yo-mouth persona as growly Nick Fury, though, honestly, he’s probably one of the few actors who can utter a phrase like “you can solve the riddle of your heart” onscreen without it turning to utter sap. John Slattery, of “Mad Men” fame, turns up as Tony’s father in flashbacks which establish Stark Industries as not far removed from Sterling Cooper. And if Johansson’s femme fatale is a little underwritten, hey—she at least looks good in those tight dresses and black bodysuits.

In true comic book movie tradition, though, the best additions are the villains. Never mind that Mickey Rourke is actually about as Russian as a fifth of Jameson’s; sporting enough metal teeth and tattoos to supply the next three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, his Ivan Vanko is a masterpiece of sly menace. This is a man who laughs off being hit head-on (repeatedly) by a car, and is equally capable of hacking Hammer’s company’s mainframe and lovingly feeding his pet cockatoo vodka. It’s a performance that succeeds on mere presence as much as anything (no mean feat in this ensemble), and seems to prove that the ‘comeback’ talk around Rourke is no fluke. A better verbal match for Downey is provided by Rockwell’s Justin Hammer, a silver-spoon motormouth who has vapid business-speak, money, and spray-on tanner all in seemingly endless supply. Slickness (think Matchstick Men), threat (think The Green Mile), and silliness (think Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) are all veins Rockwell has richly tapped in the past, and this role allows him to combine all three. The script leaves space for Hammer to return, and I at least hope he will, if only so I can continue to see two veteran hams square off as the rival businessmen. Downey and Rockwell’s scenes together are a smarmy delight.

There’s been grumbling in some quarters that this movie, like the first, basically ends with versions of the Iron Man suit fighting each other. Comic books, however, trade on this type of mirroring (the colorful, brash Joker is dour, dark Batman flipped, etc.), and for now the metaphor of Stark fighting versions of himself works. Vanko personifies the drive to settle scores just as Obadiah Stane in the first film personified corporate greed. These are both men Stark might have been, and what keeps this franchise’s head above water, in terms of narrative, is that everything is basically a variation on Stark trying to save his own heart: literally from shrapnel or poison, but also figuratively from greed, dishonor, wrath, and a host of other sins. After all, you don’t hire a guy like Downey just to spout one-liners; he gives Tony Stark depth and real personality. But I think the movies can learn from their own metaphor: overusing the whiz-bang tech stuff will slowly kill you. Right now, like Stark himself, the Iron Man series looks to come out more or less alive. This sequel is fine summer fun, and a worthy follow-up to the original. But it’s the people, not the technological bells and whistles, that make it so. Without a human being inside, Iron Man is just a bunch of colorful metal. Let’s keep a real guy in there, OK?