Film three, Iron Man 2.
I enjoyed this one as well, but after the first Iron Man, I kind of knew I would. There’s a lot going on in this film, and a lot of characters who don’t really have enough to do. Tony Stark himself is slowly dying, poisoned by his artificial heart, which ironically, keeps him alive. Pepper is promoted to Chief Executive Officer of Stark Industries, and the new Personal Assistant to the CEO is The Black Widow, an undercover member of S.H.I.E.L.D. Ivan Vanko, basically the Russian version of Tony Stark but who has had a much tougher life, wants revenge. To have his revenge, he makes some really long electric whips. Justin Hammer, the main rival of Tony Stark, is developing an army of Hammer-bots, and Whiplash eventually gets brought in to pump them up a little. Oh, and Rhodey somehow finds his way to an old Iron Man armour, which he then takes to a military base, sticks a whole lot of guns to it, and renames it “War Machine”. Cutting one or two characters would probably have worked, and saved a little on the wage bill.
Robert Downey Jr. was brilliant as the Iron Man himself yet again, loads of cheeky retorts, and I’m glad to say barefoot Pepper made an appearance as well. Effortlessly sexy. Mickey Rourke was great as the bad guy – although I do feel we could’ve gotten to know his character a little better, and maybe seen that he wasn’t all bad. Scarlett Johansson was incredibly sexy as The Black Widow, and kicked major ass. She’s just got such a pretty little innocent face, and seeing her (well, probably her stunt double) do all those kicks and holds and takedowns was quite something. The final battle scenes were brilliant, with Iron Man and War Machine tag-teaming the Hammer-bots, and then Super-Whiplash, it felt a whole lot more epic than the climax of the first film.
Also: I loved how they teased Tony’s alcoholism into the film.
