Iron Man 2 is a mess, but I think it’s kind of a glorious one. The film suffers from a common case of sequelitis – in an attempt to one-up the original, director Jon Favreau and writer Justin Theroux (yes, that Justin Theroux) just add more, more, more, going bigger and weirder and more extravagant. Not everything clicks – far from it, in fact – but Iron Man 2’s blatant excessiveness makes for entertaining viewing. And, just when your interest starts to flag, Gary Shandling shows up as a sniveling, foul-mouthed senator.
What other unexpected oddities does Iron Man 2 offer? Well, there’s Sam Rockwell as the heelish Justin Hammer, a weapons developer in competition with Stark Industries. Mickey Rourke has an utterly ridiculous (and I mean that in the best way possible) turn as disgraced Russian scientist Ivan Vanko. Vanko, who employs an imitation of the Iron Man suit technology to whip electrically-charged jump ropes, makes quite a scene at a Grand Prix race in Monaco, where he walks onto the track and begins laser-whipping oncoming cars in half (including the car of Stark himself, who is actually competing in the race for absolutely no reason other than someone thought this would be a cool scene (which, in a brazenly stupid way, it is!!)).
Scarlett Johansson debuts as Natasha Romanoff, although the character isn’t very well developed here. We also have two new faces taking on roles previously played by other actors: John Slattery makes his first appearance as Howard Stark (Slattery is unfortunately saddled with some eye-rollingly sappy dialogue) and Don Cheadle takes over for Terrence Howard as Rhodey (an in-joke about this abrupt transition is by far the film’s funniest gag). And, to round things out, Gwyneth Paltrow is back as Stark’s half-written love interest, Pepper Potts.
Oh yeah, and Stark has a drunken fight scene with Cheadle in which he decimates his own mansion…am I leaving anything out? Iron Man 2 is over-stuffed, which also means that each individual element is under-developed. Rourke, covered in tattoos and sporting a smile full of gold fillings, is oddly magnetic as Vanko, yet, by the second half of the film, he’s almost a forgotten after-thought. Like a pizza with too many toppings, Iron Man 2 is messy and a bit unnecessary – but don’t pretend as if you didn’t enjoy eating it.
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