Spoiler-Free Iron Man 2 Review

I just got home from the midnight showing of the brand-new sure-to-be-blockbuster Iron Man 2. I’m going to attempt to give you my reaction without necessarily giving anything away (because, really, where’s the fun in that?), but you could probably argue that any sort of reaction to the movie could be considered a potential spoiler.

With this in mind, I’m going to try to save my thoughts on the movie until after the jump; however, I can’t just put the jump in here, because then the format of the post will be goofy looking. Skip down the page to the jump if you want. I’m just gonna waste some time until then.

Before I went to the theater tonight, I re-watched the original Iron Man film. Thought you might like to know that. Man, I really like that movie. So good. I especially like the ending. What a great way to OK that’s enough, let’s jump into this.

First off, let me just say that I enjoyed the movie while I was watching it. It doesn’t break a lot of new ground, and it’s not as good as the first one, but it’s no Indiana Jones 4, if you’re worried about that possibility. We get more free-wheelin’ Tony Stark, better computer graphics, a cooler villain, and a bunch of new toys to look at. If you’re looking for anything more than that, well, you’ll be disappointed.

Now, let’s talk about the good stuff. Obviously, Robert Downey, Jr is great as Tony Stark. Even if his material isn’t as good this time around, it’s clear that he’s still having a lot of fun playing this character.

Mickey Rourke is an incredibly spooky villain, and Sam Rockwell brings in another solid performance as Stark’s rival weapons manufacturer. Normally comic movies suffer when they add more than one villain, but this one pulled it off a lot like Christopher Nolan pulled it off in both of his Batman movies, though in a completely different way.

Unfortunately, not all of the characters in this movie worked as well as those guys. Everything with S.H.I.E.L.D. seems almost like they were pulling our leg on purpose with how bad it is. Black Widow and Nick Fury look like they were pulled straight out of a really bad Direct-to-Video movie from the 80s.

As for Don Cheadle taking over as Rhodey, well, it doesn’t work for me. Not to take anything away from the Oscar-winner, but it always comes across as clumsy and off-putting when a sequel retains a character from the original but swaps him out with a new actor. Iron Man 2 doesn’t figure out how to rise above that problem.

And then there’s Pepper Potts, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Everything about her is frustratingly awful. When she tries to do the cutesy little banter with Tony, it snaps along way too quickly to the point where you just want to tell both characters to shut their goddamn yappers. I blame this on her.

As for the rest of the movie, everything is just kind of there. It’s not terrible, but it’s not all that great either. My only beef with the first one is that the soundtrack was complete crap (aside from the song played at the end, obviously) and the ending was nothing more than a Giant CGI Shit Storm. Both of those problems are in this movie, but if you’ve seen a single ad, you probably could have guessed that.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say for now. I’m sure we’ll review it at length sometime later, once other members of the Legion have seen it. It’s worth seeing, but, then, if you’re visiting this blog, it’s not like I have to tell you that. You’re going to see it, regardless of what I say. Keep your expectations low, and, like me, you just might enjoy yourself.

At least for a little while.