But then the Big Hollywood Machine gets spinning, and we enter an infinite loop. All momentum and no friction. We start with the peppy Pepper Potts (a fairly innocuous Gwyneth Paltrow), who Stark handpicks to run his company when he enters the full depths of despair, bequeathing everything in his life. Just as their love-hate relationship, clearly tipping towards the former, whips into a froth, enter Natalie Rushman (a pouting Scarlett Johansson) the ravishingly beautiful “notary” who Tony hires on as a full-time assistant – a double-agent of sorts with a wicked ninja kick. Then there’s Rhodey (an earnest Don Cheadle, taking the place of Terrence Howard) who starts growing wary of Tony’s self-destructive behavior and steals one of Stark’s suits to take back to his military bosses. He emerges as War Machine, a foe and then ally to Iron Man. (More at Techland: Better than Pandora – the all-time best sci-fi planets)
Pile on top of all this the diabolical double team of greasy-haired Russian engineer Ivan Vanko (an underused Mickey Rourke) and wealthy military contractor Justin Hammer (a scene chewing, buttoned-up Sam Rockwell) – and just a pinch of both Samuel L. Jackson as the secret super-agent ring leader Nick Fury and Garry Shandling as a grandstanding congressman who wants to enact eminent domain on Stark’s weapon of mass destruction – and you have a bloated, heaving blimp of a movie. Yes, each and every characters gets his/her moment in the spotlight, from Scarlett’s harrowing Hit-Girl sprint down a hallway lined with bad guys to Sam’s arrogant commandeering of the stage at Stark Expo, convinced that he’s about to steal Iron Man’s thunder on his home turf. But given this lengthy, labored list of characters, that’s all Iron Man 2 has time for – one moment in the spotlight.
Blink too long, or run to the bathroom, and you could easily miss half of an actor’s performance.
The worst consequence of this scattered focus is that it diverts our attention from the franchise’s greatest asset: Robert Downey Jr. It’s his frantic flamboyance that blew me away the first time around, and yet here in chapter two, I think people might feel shortchanged. Yes, we build up to a showdown between Iron Man and War Machine and about two dozen robotic drones. But it’s hard not to notice, in the climactic battle sequence, that Stark is pinned inside his suit, his face obscured by computer graphics, all but removed from the action. A carefully choreographed final brawl has all the attitude and humanity of a Transformers showdown; even when Ivan is on his last leg, and when Pepper appears to be in danger, there’s no real emotional weight. In wielding so much CG so quickly, the movie itself is rendered mechanical.
So it’s not that Iron Man 2 is a bad superhero movie, just that it could have been so much more than just a superhero movie. This is one of the few franchises that has found a way of crafting a human that’s even more interesting than his superhero persona, and the addictiveness of Tony Stark is still in full effect. I loved experiencing this movie. But the more I’ve thought about this sequel in the 10 days since, the less interested I am in seeing it a second time. Director Jon Favreau has fused together so many characters, and so many plot twists, and yet the sum is less than all its many moving parts.
If Iron Man proved anything, it’s that audiences wanted more man, not more iron. And while Stark’s grand entrance in part 2 clearly understands the urgency of stripping off the suit to reveal the mad scientist underneath, we spend the last 20 minutes lost in the CG circus, dazzled by a brilliant, bright but ultimately lifeless light show.
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