Spoilers abound, so beware of the click-through…
I liked it. We knew a lot of it was coming – Rhodey as War Machine, roles for the hybridized Whiplash and for Justin Hammer and Black Widow and more time for Nick Fury, and the classic “more more MORE” imperative that seems to fuel every superhero sequel. This could have been an incoherent mess, but they somehow managed to make it all fit in, along with a brief yet telling take on the now-legendary “Demon in a Bottle” storyline. (Which dates from 1979. Can you imagine the balls it takes to make a feature superhero an alcoholic in 1979??)
The one thing that really didn’t work for me, though, was Don Cheadle. This is not a knock on an actor who I regard as one of the finest working today, and if he’d been in the first movie rather than Terrence Howard, I don’t even think this would have been a problem. But so much of the second picture relies on the friendship between Tony and Rhodey, and seeing a different face on the good Colonel was just jarring enough that it didn’t really click for me the way it probably should have. Which is unfortunate, but what can you do.
The other problem, obviously, was that we knew this one was coming. Da Wife pointed out – aptly – that the first movie was so successful because it was so fresh. The original movie was a complete blindside – fanboy types had to admit that Robert Downey Jr. as the self-destructive Tony Stark was inspired casting, a role he was born to play a la Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones or Daniel Craig as James Bond – but by and large, I think the general public had no idea what to expect. Your typical American knows five superheroes off the top of his head: Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Hulk. Iron Man is second-tier, or was, and it was the freedom to tell his story to a mainstream audience for the first time that made it such a breath of fresh air – especially since it was spared the brooding darkness of a Batman or Spiderman picture.
Well, now we get the brooding darkness, coupled with an especially self-destructive streak, all driven by one fact: this is the first time we’ve ever seen a mainstream movie superhero with no secret identity. “The suit and I are one,” Tony asserts, and it’s true – Tony Stark is Iron Man, and his need to be Iron Man is fueling his own sickness, which in turn fuels his own self-destruction, which means he can’t really BE Iron Man, which just takes the spiral further down. And Nick Fury is blunt – they need Iron Man, but they only need Tony Stark as a consultant; he’s not Avenger material, is the insinuation at the end. So it will be interesting to see how much he really does pull his life back together, especially since we’re probably looking at three years minimum to the next installment (RDJ is under contract for Iron Man 3, tentatively for 2013, but definitely not before the Avengers movie happens).
Actually, that Avengers movie could be a bit of a show. We’ve already done a good deal of the world-building, and we have allusions to two more characters that could have not been more blatant if they’d crashed to Earth in a crater in your yard. By the time 2012 rolls around, the Avengers movie is going to have to feel like the big superstar mega-payoff to all this world-creating (and Samuel L. Jackson is under contract for NINE PICTURES as Nick Fury, so I wonder just where they’re going with this, especially since I can’t ever think of a successful superhero-team movie. Hell, I can’t think of another superhero-team movie, and don’t tell me Fantastic Four, that was a poor live-action imitation of the Incredibles).
So yes, I endorse this movie. (It’s running about 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, so I’m not the only one obviously.) I don’t have the same compulsion to revolving-door back into the theater and watch it again immediately, but I’d be surprised if I don’t pick it up again at least once before DVD, especially now that I know to look for the Hulk easter egg at the end…