MCU Filmathon: Iron Man 2

We move onto the third film in the series and Iron Man's sequel, after the success of the first film and

the way it focuses on Tony Stark as he strives to redeem himself for the creation of weapons that have ended the lives of so many. This one doesn't develop the character any further, if anything it goes back to the beginning and we have the same old drunken ladies man that we thought we moved on from in the first film. The movie seems to distance itself from Tony in a way and not only touch upon the fact he is being poisoned by the very thing that keeps him alive. But still it offers no further development, Tony is still the confident, egotistical, witty man we love to watch and we see that a lot in this film. But there's no moment where we really see him change for the good and I personally want to see that from a character.

The film opens with Ivan Vanko, his father dying and him building his own mini arc reactor with opening credits over the top. Perhaps in some way it was good to be introduced to the Villain straight off the bat but it's the start that begins to move the film away from the main character and focus on external events more. Although my favourite moment of the movie comes from Ivan when he walks onto the Monte Carlo race track and with a single whip destroys race cars, a great introduction for Whiplash. It also leads to  great fight scene between him and Iron Man, oh and Pepper and Happy in a car but they skid out in no time. Just when you think the film might be picking up after this sequence it returns to more talking and have to wait another forty five minutes for another fight scene.

Sam Rockwell playing Justin Hammer does it well, despite the fact Justin is the most annoying character in the film, he's just there when you don't want to see him and rather than a villain he's more

of a business opposition to Stark Industries as he doesn't come across as imposing or evil villain material at all. But he does keep himself busy throughout the film, using Vanko for his personal gain. James Rhodes turns up at Stark's birthday party to claim the suits from Stark and is quite a good beginning for Rhodes as War Machine, for me this part worked quite well because War Machine does have a pretty good role in this film!

Then we find out that Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanov is employed to Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury and we see him for the first time in a Marvel film. It's a hell of a lot to keep track of for a sequel as it tries to incorporate so much information that is useful for other Marvel films after this one. Then the scene after the credits that shows Nick mentioning S.H.I.E.L.D is a nice moment and it keeps up with the MCU's gradual build up to the Avengers. But why would Stark join the Avengers? I could only assume it would be a great ego boost to him which is not what I wanted to think, I would have loved to see his character develop a bit more in the film then I could think of another reason for him to join at this point.

I don't like to bad mouth movies and definitely Iron Man but so much stood out for me when I watched this film ages ago, and it still stands out now. There are good elements to the movie but it was rushed and the script shows it with quick lines to fill in gaps and the future information that could have been saved and explain in greater detail in other films. In 2010 when this came out it still was one of the movies I anticipated the most that year, but it isn't a worthy Iron Man sequel in my opinion. But with more movies to look at I will be writing more positive reviews, especially as the next film is Thor I am looking forward to watching that again!

Thanks for reading! :)