This is one of those reviews that I intentionally hold until day of release since I know my posting it won't wield any sort of influence on whether anyone sees the movie or not. What I'm interested in is the conversation that has developed since people started seeing it. Iron Man 2, much like its protagonist, is put-upon with the responsibility of catering to a larger world and much higher expectations than its freshman go.
The audience from the Fan Screening in Austin last week.
The movie's pace shifts into lower gear in the middle of the movie under the burden of fleshing out new characters and developing more storylines than the first film had to deal with. After the sequence in Monaco, we suddenly jump from a fast-burning to a slow-buring fuse. Once the third act ignition kicks in, however, we burn yet faster than before.
The movie opens with Mickey Rourke's Ivan Vanko caring for his ailing father while watching Tony Stark on TV declaring that he is Iron Man. The fathers of Vanko and Stark are set up with a Thomas Edison-Nikola Tesla rivalry dynamic, and Ivan emerges as a morally justified post-Cold War villain. As same-same as superhero movies have become, the texturing that Favreau insists upon in the Iron Man movies deserves a great deal of credit.
The methodical pace of the middle of the picture mirrors the journey and process of Vanko, the villain (or is he? is it instead Howard Stark?). Vanko patiently hones his blade of attack on his own schedule. Tony isn't aware of him for a significant amount of the movie's running time. Tony focuses on the doom brewing in his chest rather than the slow-cooking hell waiting for the right moment to burst open. The movie primarily deals with variations on the theme of being overwhelmed by one's own potential.
Those leveling the expectations, tone, and nature of other franchises on this followup are committing the same error of judgment as anyone who holds a new sci-fi sequel up against The Empire Strikes Back. It's a comparative analysis inherently flawed by the odds being stacked impossibly against the movie in question.
There's no good reason that Iron Man 2 should try to or pretend to be the "Dark Knight" of Iron Man movies, in nature or impact. The only mission IM2 is beholden to is continuing the story begun in the first film and remaining engaging, something I found it did quite well in spite of the abrupt change in pacing. Those who have already complained that this is "more of the same" should ask themselves if The Dark Knight suffers from being "more of the same" as compared to Batman Begins.
What do these people want, Iron Man on Roller Skates? Iron Man in King Arthur's Court? Iron Man Trains a Dragon in 3D? I smell various sites inventing stories out of how Iron Man 2 "underperforms" in various ways come Monday. Shy of the movie making five bucks, there's no way in hell this movie will "underperform".
The fat that could have been trimmed, according to others, lies in riffing that only truly wore out its welcome for me a couple of times. According to Favreau, Downey's style of acting is such that he hates repeating take after take". To wholesale throw it all out would eliminate the tone they established in the first film, which had its share of off-the-cuff takes too. If you get rid of all the marbling in a cut of meat, you're ditching the flavor. All these reviews that talk about whole scenes dedicated to Thor and Captain America references are inaccurate. I counted three.
Yes, it runs long in places, and we feel it. The reason we do is that expectations have been raised so high that God himself couldn't surmount them. The gigantic pleasant surprise that was the first movie couldn't hope to be duplicated in emotion or sense of elevation. Where Iron Man 2 succeeds is in being a coherent, faithful next step in expanding the universe of the first film.
The movie's primary storyline is firmly entrenched in how the U.S. government goes about checking and balancing Iron Man, the most advanced weapon in the world. The scenes that involve government agents (Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury and others) are in service of this. Are there reference to The Avengers? Yes, of course there are, but they're minor at best to anyone outside of fans of the comic and aren't gratuitous since they're there in service of the story. To say they're irrelevant is to say "if I wrote my version of this script, it would go thus and so and include this superhero they should have used".
The fanboy question that has been asked to death since the synopsis of the movie got out is "why didn't they do the Demon in a Bottle story from the comics?" For those who have no idea what that is, Demon was a story run of Iron Man that dealt with Stark's alcoholism, and it went really dark. It went darker-than-Dark Knight dark.
It's considered the quintessential Iron Man storyline of any era. In interviews, Jon Favreau has referred to it as "Leaving Las Vegas territory". A guy wearing an Iron Man t-shirt asked Favreau at the Austin Fan Screening post-show Q&A why they didn't do "Demon in a Bottle". The funny thing is, they did incorporate a lot of "Demon", including a mix of booze and the suit with Stark in a public setting.
The biggest roadblock Paramount set in their own path was cutting a trailer that touches on the best moments in every single action sequence. This sets people up to expect "boom, BOom, BOOM!" for the entire running time. Were audiences going in expecting more talkiness, I think the popular response wouldn't be peppered with the sigh-prefaced "it was o-k" that's started spreading.