Iron Man 2

What's the Deal:  In the summer of 2008, 2 mainstream superheroes movies were released.  One the highly anticipated The Dark Knight which was about perhaps the second most famous superhero of all time fighting arguably the most famous superhero villain of all time (Batman vs. the Joker).  The other was Iron Man, which started very under-the-radar, smaller budget movie about a superhero the vast majority of the general public had never heard of.  The Dark Knight was fantasitc, as was anticipated, but the crazy thing is that so was Iron Man.

Well, because Iron Man made a bazillion dollars in 2008, you knew there was a sequel coming.  And it came out in May of 2010. 

Iron Man 2 picks up a few months after Iron Man left off.  The government/military wants Tony Stark's iron man suit and his technology for itself.  But, over in Russia, some guy whose father was screwed over by Tony Stark's father actually has the technology!  He is known as whiplash, and he builds himself a suit.  But his suit has lightning bolts that come out of the arms.  He attacks Tony Stark at the Monaco grand prix auto race.

Then Whiplash joins forces with Tony Stark's business rival to take Stark down.

What I liked:

1.  The Bad Guy:  It's very creative and he's very bad.  The fight scenes involving whiplash are cool, exciting, and well done. 

2.  Robert Downey Jr.  He's so smug, sarcastic, narcissistic, and hilarious.  His portrayal of Stark really makes this movie and the previous one worthwhile. 

3.  The Action:  It's really pretty good.  Just a very solid, summer action blockbuster where you don't have to think too much. 

What I didn't: 

1.  The obvious foreshadowing to both another Iron Man Sequel and an "Avengers" movie.  Apparently in some future movie Iron Man, his sidekick War Machine, the Hulk, and a bunch of other superheroes are going to team up, call themselves The Avengers, and fight some terrible bad guy.  This is all being foreshadowed already in this movie, and the recent Ed Norton Hulk movie a year or 2 ago.  I just kind of wish they weren't...

2.  Too much:  I guess I just miss the days of one superhero fighting one bad guy in each movie.  Nowadays they feel like they have to add multiple bad guys, sidekicks and plots to every movie, especially sequels.  That's one of the best parts of the first iron man was so great: It was one, straightforward plot.  Here, there are a lot of bad guys and a lot of sidekicks and a lot of subplots that aren't that relevant to the overall thing.  That's just a minor complaint of an overall pretty good movie. 


Funny side-note.  I loved the first Iron Man.  I really expected it to be bad superhero movie, along the lines of the Fantastic 4 or Elektra or Daredevil.  Also, I found out it was directed by Jon Favreau.  Wait, Jon Favreau?  The guy I had previously known as "the-other-guy-in-Swingers?"  Yes.  He directed Iron Man.  But when I did see it, I bought into it and it was great. 

So...Melissa and I were invited to see Iron Man 2 with my parents.  Melissa never got around to seeing the first one, so I decided to try to describe the plot of it to her so that she would be up to speed for the sequel. 

"Yeah, so this guy is super rich and his family makes weapons.  He's in the middle east on a business trip and he gets captured and kept in a cave.  While there he uses a bunch of spare metal parts to make a suit that flies and shoots flames and helps him escape.  Then when he gets back to the states, he realizes that his corporation's leadership has become corrupt by the guy that plays Lebowski.  Eventually the Lebowski guy builds an iron suit of his own and they have a fight in their iron suits.  Oh, and also the out-of-suit iron man runs on some kind of shiny battery that he puts into his chest and constantly needs recharging."   

As I continued talking, and her look got more and more condescending, I realized how silly it kind of was.  But it's still a good one.