Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau, 2010)

I got stuck in New York. So sue me.

Well I went into this film having been told it wasn't as good as the first one, but I was pleasantly surprised. The action was action, Robert Downey Jr. was his usual debonair self, and Terrence Howard metamorphosised into Don Cheadle.

The story follows on directly after the end of the first film, but starts from the perspective of Mickey Rourke's character, Whiplash. I wasn't sure how to interpret Rourke's character, because he clearly had a backstory, and had been raised to hate the Stark family so I found it hard to hate him. Especially because he was such a bad ass. Anyone who has a Parakeet can't be all bad right? The real baddie turned out to be Hammer, Tony Stark's answer to Mandark (see Dexter's Laboratory).

The action sequences were really amazing, when I was watching the credits I counted about 10 visual effects companies who worked on the film, and it really shows because there're some spectacular special effects. I especially liked the parts in Stark's basement where we works. The effects where he walked through his computer and built the new element were astounding.

However my one gripe with the movie, is Scarlett Johansson. I've been told that her character has no purpose, and I absolutely agree. Any one of her sequences could have been altered so a pre-existing character could play her parts. Although I understand there is a whole world already created for Favreau to draw from, and she's probably in it. I just didn't see the point in her, Gwyneth Paltrow could have done most of her role and still have been Pepper Potts.

However having said that the film is fantastic, perhaps no so much so as the first but it still left a good impression on me, and despite preferring Terrence Howard to Don Cheadle as Rhodes, I did enjoy the fight sequences between him and Iron man, and then again at the end in the botanical garden dome thing.
Also, the AC-DC soundtrack is awful and there wasn't nearly enough Samuel L. Jackson.

I've got a little something in mind for my next review. It'll be awesome. And amateur.

Toodles!