Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau) 2010 Minor Spoilers

This review is not going to be that extensive.  I am trying to limit my discussions because I don’t want to spoil anything for people that still want to see it, but I am going to have to talk a little about the structure of the film.

To get things done right off the bat I still really like this film.  I came in hearing some rather harsh criticism and had some low expectations but I still liked it.  That being said, I agree with many of the criticisms.

My biggest issue is during the second act the movie grinds to a screeching halt with the sheer number of subplots going on.  Someone may have counted them out to seven but I can’t remember.  Suffice it to say we learn everything we ever cared (and don’t care) about Stark’s family life, business life, personal and business life of his friends and enemies.  While I appreciate the fact they are trying to give Stark character, Favreau has to remember this is a summer action movie.  It kind of has a Spider-man 3 complex where it tries to shoe horn two movies into one and the whole movie kind of suffers.  Iron Man 2 doesn’t nearly have that big of a problem but I was looking at my watch in the middle.

I also had a big problem with them making Whiplash a second banana to Sam Rockwell’s character in the second act.  I really loved Whiplash and expected this movie to be the Wrath of Khan of the series.  This man despises all things Stark and wants to go on a Moby Dick quest for revenge and wants to destroy everything that is dear to him.  But then Rourke is banished to the Phantom Zone for the second act while we establish Rockwell and it is a complete swerve in tone.  It is like if for some reason after the first act of Dark Knight, Joker goes away and we get the campy Gene Hackman Lex Luthor to substitute for villain.  I am mixing comics all over the place but  you get my drift.  We go from primal revenge story to a bumbling villain that couldn’t beat a cold.  Not to mention that Whiplash gets kind of punked in his fight scenes.  Well maybe punked is too harsh a word but his fight scenes are way too short.  This just goes back to me wanting Rourke to be more of a presence in the movie and to be a much more menacing villain.

The action scenes are okay.  Favreau has improved slightly but he still doesn’t frame the action all that well.  In this movie the action scenes are sensory overload as we get fifty things all screaming for our attention.  There is so much CGI and the action so fast it is a little hard to focus on any one thing.

The movie is one really lousy middle sandwiched by two awesome bookends.  That is the long and the short of it.  I think there needed to be some editing and some rewrites and it would have been on par with the first.  I still like Favreau as director and want him to do the third installment.  But he needs to stay focused on what made his first movie great and leave the fans wanting more; not checking their watches.