2010
6/10
DIRECTOR: Jon Favreau
“Iron Man” had left me lukewarm but after a couple more viewings, it was growing on me and the prospect of the “Iron Man 2″ became something which I was looking forward to. But after 2 years, nothing had been learned from the failings of the first.
In a year when “Iron man” had to go up against the “The Dark Knight”, it was never going to be the greatest comic book flick but it was good none the less, but its sequel was a mish-mash of concepts and characters thrown together without form or substance. I understand the arguments that this film is part of the greater “Avengers” super film, and I’m not against that but it should still hold up under its own weight and it doesn’t.
In the end, this was as close to boring as possible, but was still watchable though plodding and engaging. Too many ideas and setups without actually having a story to arch over it.
*** SPOILERS ***
We have the following elements: Iron Man is being poisoned by the device with drives the suit and keeps him alive, so he needs a cure; He promotes Pepper Potts to CEO; Evil Russian on a quest for revenge constructs and evil Iron Man suit; U.S. Government want the suit; U.S. contractor in the form of Sam Rockwell wants to out do Stark and create and army of Iron Men; The a fore mentioned Russian takes over and releases them upon the world, and possibly more important than all that, S.H.E.I.L.D. is on his case and this might have something to do with… “Avengers”????? Perhaps…
In the end, this the problem with the whole film. It is two hours of Avenger’s setup, has lost its way and is blind to fact that there is very little story of its own. This isn’t a tie in so much as a trailer!
In the end, this film plods and every now again has moments of wit, humour and action but they are interspersed and outweighed by portentous character building and the overwhelming desire to create the definitive Marvel universe over the characters of the said universe. It is a poor trade off and will ultimately spell the end of this project. Put it this way; “Avengers” had better be one hell of a movie, better than “Spiderman”, clearly Marvel’s best to date, to justify all this, an I very much doubt that it will be.
DC, with all the machinations and politics attached to their projects and heroes have done and shown more originality than Marvel over the past 10 years and I do believe that the genre redefining “Batman” franchise will be hard to beat.
[...] of creating hype for the culmintion of The Avengers project. For more on synical Marvel films, see Iron Man 2, and Thor. (Not seen Captain America: The First Avenger yet so no [...]
[...] the four-year project and introduce some of the lesser known and less bankable characters, such as Iron Man, Thor, Hulk (Reboot) and controversially named, Captain [...]
[...] so) Incredible Hulk. What has now become known as “Phase 1″ continued in 2010 with Iron Man 2, and then in 2011 with Thor and Captain America. Directors included Jon Favreau, Kenneth Branagh [...]
[...] has now become known as “Phase 1″ continued in 2010 with Iron Man 2, and then in 2011 with Thor and Captain America. Directors included Jon Favreau, Kenneth Branagh [...]
[...] and besides Ang Lee’s underrated Hulk (2003), is probably the best of the Marvel movies. But Iron Man 2 (2010) failed to impress, as it was little more than an overstuffed trailer for The Avengers (2012) [...]