Would you go to the birthday party of a guy who built an armored battle-suit that could easily make that day your last? I sure would!
Iron Man 2. The third installment of Avengers phase 1, and by that, I mean it's the third movie that led up to the Avengers. So, Iron Man 2 is the continuing story of Tony Stark aka Iron Man, once again played by Robert Downy Jr. I said in my Iron Man review that he owns the role of Tony stark, and I'm standing by what I said. At the end of the last movie, he revealed to the world that he was Iron Man, and that's where this movie starts. We see Stark telling the world he's Iron Man on a TV in a country, Iraq maybe? We see our main villain, Whiplash, or Ivan Vanko. He hasn't become Whiplash yet. But we see him caring for his father and he dies right before his eyes. Ouch. Ivan drowns his sorrows in vodka, then gets to work on an arch reactor that his father happen to have blueprints for. Yeah, his father Ivan Vanko used to work with Tony's dad before he was exported. Ivan finishes his miniature arch reactor and gives an evil chuckle to let you know he's the bad guy, even if you haven't seen the trailer. Then, a mere six months later, we see Iron Man flying down to his Expo to have a good time. And we notice he's checking his blood toxicity levels. After that, we see the scene that was in almost every trailer, the court scene. That doesn't really need an introduction does it? Everyone has seen the court scene in one way, shape, or form. Anyway, back in the foreign country, we see Ivan finishing up his prototype, and now you know he's Whiplash. We see a sort of montage of scenes that have no real point, except for Natasha Romanoff played by the gorgeous Scarlett Johansson. I'm not kidding, this chick is way too hot. A perfect role for Black Widow. When Stark said, "I want one." I can't blame him. I'd want one, too. Anyway, the progressing storyline leads us to Monaco where Tony and Whiplash first face off. I love the sequence where he armored up. It was incredible to see him use that suitcase suit. And as you'd imagine, Tony wins, but the battle wasn't that long in my opinion. I would have like to see another three minutes at least. But what we got was good enough. So, Ivan is locked up, but Jack Hammer breaks him out (and by that I mean he has his hired goons do it for him) and has him begin working on Iron Men suits for him to present at the Expo. Since Tony revealed his suit to the world, millions have tried to duplicate his tech and none have succeeded except for Ivan. And I imagine you can put two and two together. Jack wants to get his hands on Tony's tech to get rich. Typical evil guy plan. Back to the Tony Stark show featuring Iron Man, Tony learns that the device that is keeping him alive is also killing him. And since he thinks he's gonna die, he does everything he'd think of doing but never dreamed of doing. He's selling his stuff, and at the beginning of the movie he made Pepper the new CEO of Stark Industries since he's Iron Man. What he can't multi-task? Actually that will pay off as a part of Pepper's story arch which I'll talk about later. Tony crosses the line when he throws his birthday party and shows off his Iron Man suit to the hot girls in bikinis. This guy knows how to throw a party. But Rhodey is tired of his irresponsibility and, get this, puts his Mark II suit on, and they have a brutal fight. In the end, they shoot their repulsors together, blow up a good portion of his house, and Rhodey takes his suit with him. The next day Tony's eating donuts inside a giant donut in his Iron Man suit. Nick Fury pops up, because he's had enough of Tony's irresponsibility. He gets Tony back to work and he reveals that Tony's dad was one of the Founding members of S.H.I.E.L.D. Not sure if that's important for later during Phase II or III of the Avengers, but it's worth mentioning. Back at Rhodey's military base, his superiors has Jack Hammer weaponize his suit. Ivan is also recreating and improving his Whiplash armor. I can imagine that it's months later by the time Tony finishes what he was doing down stairs. He made his whole armory into a giant tool and uses it to create a new element that he uses in his arch reactor and it doesn't kill him. Hooray! We then see Pepper and Natasha heading to the Expo, where we see Jack reveal his drones (Ivan made the Iron Men suits drones since, well, "Drone is better. Drone does not make mistake. Trust me, drone is better."). Yeah. And we see something that made my jaw drop even though I knew it was coming: War Machine! Finally! Then Iron Man shows up and the crowd goes nuts. But Ivan hacks into the drones' systems, as well as Rhodey's, and has them wreak havoc on the Expo. Meanwhile, Natasha heads to Whiplash's hideout with Happy Hogan, and Happy tries to take out one guard while Natasha (just to show how much of a bad-ass she is) takes out every other guard in the building under five minutes. Whiplash escapes, but she hacks into Whiplash's computer and gave Rhodey access to his suit, so that he's in control. Then, an epic battle emerges where all of the remaining drones take on Iron Man and War Machine. It was again not very long, but it was so epic. And Whiplash shows up in his suit and takes on our heroes. It's over in about ten minutes. But Whiplash activates a self-destruct protocol in all of the drones, which makes Tony race back to the Expo just in the nick of time to save Pepper. Then they kiss (obviously) and we skip to Nick Fury and Tony talking about the Avengers again. Then our story wraps up with Rhodey and Stark being honored for saving the city. Yeah right. Spider-man saves the day on countless occasions but he doesn't get a medal. That reminds me. Haven't you guys noticed that in most of the Marvel movies, the heroes kill off their enemies? Think about it. Iron Man killed off Stane and Whiplash. Spider-man (Tobey Maguire) killed all his enemies in all three of his movies. And the Fantastic Four's main bad guy was presumably killed in their second movie. The only ones who didn't have their main villain killed were Thor, Daredevil, and the New Spider-man (Andrew Garfield). I won't say Captain America because we don't know for sure if Red Skull is dead or not. But nevertheless, I'm going to say that Iron Man 2 is a 3.4 out of 5. It was a great time, but for you Iron Man fans, bump it up to buy on DVD. I enjoyed the action, the humor, the fighting scenes could have been a little bit longer in my opinion, but that's just me.
Anyway, speaking of Thor. Those of you who waited until after the credits, you all saw Thor's hammer in the ground and you know what's next. Keep an eye out for my Thor movie review: coming soon. So have you seen Iron Man 2? What did you think of it? Comment below, let me know. And check out my other reviews if you want to read more. Bye-bye.