On Friday, I predicted that Iron Man 2 would make over $85 million it’s opening weekend. It knocked out the competition with a weekend gross of over $133.6 million. In this installment, the world now knows that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is Iron Man. He has single handedly made the world a better place with his super hero abilities, but that isn’t enough for the government. With Senator Stern (Gary Shandling) leading the way, the government wants him to turn over his technology to them, because they feel that one man should not wield such power alone. He turns them down. Then when a man named Ivan Vanko aka Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) attacks Starks with the same type of technology, the government feels that Starks was wrong and that his patent has been copied sooner than he anticipated. With the help of Stark’s buddy, James “Rhodey†Rhodes (Don Cheadle) they get one of Tony’s Iron man suits and began developing their own models of the suit’s technology. Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) a weapons dealer and competitor of Stark, gets Ivan to help him with the prototypes for the new suits, so that he can supply the government’s request for these new weaponry suits. Ivan has plans of his own and unleashes an army of the deadly remote controled robotic suits. Tony must now team up with Rhodes ,both wearing iron man suits, if they are going to have any chance against the onslaught of machine gun shooting, rocket firing droids. Can the two of them take on more than two dozen of these robots? Plus what else does Ivan have planned now that he has extra technology at his finger tips?
I knew this movie was going to be just as good, if not better than the first. From the first trailer of the movie, I was in such anticipation of its release that I could hardly wait till May 7th came around. This was the movie that all comic fans had been waiting for this year, and they didn’t disappoint. It’s was funny, technologically filled and action packed. Robert Downey Jr. was actually better and more charismatic in this one, then he was in the first. Yeah his character is arrogant and self centered, but you just love it. He was the perfect choice to play Tony Stark. As most of you know there was a change in actors to play James Rhodes. Don Cheadle took over were Terrance Howard missed out, in my opinion. How could you be so stupid as to get yourself thrown out of the cast, for requesting a bigger paycheck? It wasn’t your movie, Terrance, it was Robert’s. You should have just gone with the flow, I’m sure this won’t be the last Iron Man movie and you could have probably gotten a raise after this one. I do have to say that Don needs to loosen up just a bit. There won’t be any Academy Award nominations for a comic book movie, so don’t be so stiff, next time around.
Gwyneth Paltrow was back as “Pepper Pottsâ€, Tony’s assistant and she did a wonderful job. This woman has won an Oscar, and you didn’t see her asking for more money for the sequel, another jab at Terrance Howard. Also back revising his role is Samuel L. Jackson as “Nick Furyâ€. He has a bigger presence in this one, and just further hypes up the audience for the future release of “The Avengers†movie. New to the cast is Scarlett Johansson as Natalie aka “Black Widow†(which won’t be mentioned in the movie). She added a new dimension to the films action, that didn’t require things blowing up. Mickey Rourke was superb as Whiplash, and his Russian accent wasn’t that bad either. His character had some really good scenes as well. All in all I feel this was a great cast, and they all worked well together. I gave this movie 3 proton blasts out of 4. It’s a great superhero franchise, that hasn’t dropped the ball yet. That was done by Mr. Howard! LOL The movie runs 2 hours and 5 mins. It’s rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, and some language. It was written by Justin Theroux. It was directed by Jon Favreau, who by the way is also good in the movie as Stark’s chauffer. It was produced by Marvel Studios. It was distributed by Paramount Pictures.
I AM IRON MAN – Black Sabbath
Next week’s review: TBD
