A significant portion of my last semester in college was spent hanging out with German exchange students that had come all the way to Christopher Newport to study engineering; there were aerospace facilities within walking distance of my apartment. These guys had come all the way to my home state and I wanted to show them some of that Southern hospitality. That included BBQs, drinking contests, and, on one occasion, going to the movies.
That movie was
Iron Man 2.
The success of the first MCU movie literally caught everyone by surprise including the people that made it. A sequel was fast-tracked ahead of separate installments introducing Thor and Captain America with Jon Favreau jumping back in the director's seat and most of his cast (with the notable exception of Terrence Howard, replaced by Don Cheadle after a pay dispute) joining him. At the sequel's core are two characters haunted by the legacies of their departed fathers. Tony could never live up to his father's expectations (especially after Howard Stark worked alongside a certain Star-Spangled Avenger that will inevitably led to decades old resentment coming to the surface) and the elder Stark passed before the two men could make amends; everything Tony does is to impress a parent that wasn't around to see what their child had become. The flip-side of that coin is Mickey Rourke's Ivan Vanko: After trying to sell Stark secrets to the Soviets, Anton Vanko was exiled to Siberia where he dies cursing the Stark legacy in his son's arms. For Ivan, who probably grew up put upon because of his disgraced father, there is only revenge against what Tony Stark represents and nothing more. No possibility of redemption, no nuance, just pure, unfiltered hatred.
By the time
Iron Man 2 rolled around, I was a dyed in the wool fan in sharp contrast from when I first saw the original film. Matt Fraction was just absolutely knocking it out of the park with character (His book with Salvador Larroca,
The Five Nightmares is arguably one of the best Iron Man stories). This was (and probably will remain) the lowest point we've ever seen Tony Stark. Facing blood poisoning by the very device he fashioned to keep himself alive, Tony is laboring to reframe his family's war profiteering legacy towards one shaping through the future. He's donating his personal art collection, he's launching a year-round expo giving tech developers an outlet to showcase their bleeding edge projects.
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| That even Elon Musk wants in on. |
But it's also Tony Stark so he's going to slap his name on the expo. He's going to publicly list his accomplishments while surrounded by scantily clad dancers made up to look like they're wearing Iron Man suits. He's going to jump into a Formula One race at the last minute because he can't resist public grandstanding after successfully mouthing off to a congressional investigation. You want to know why Tony Stark declares he's Iron Man? It's because he needs that credit, that validation. No heroic altruism without those egotistical strings attached. But even by his own standards he's overcompensating as he's racing the clock to his own death (with a handy blood poisoning gauge he periodically uses) and he's pushing else around him away.
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| "I have regrets." |
Favreau and Downey had admirably hit that balance between liking and reviling Tony Stark in 2008. They're less successful here; you don't necessarily need to like your protagonists but Tony's actions get murkier for much of the second act and all that chemistry with Paltrow has kind of evaporated here while he stands at odds with Cheadle for the bulk of the film even coming to blows with him Also, the objectification of Scarlett Johansson here is super problematic and, even as a college kid in 2010, I felt that way. More impressive is Sam Rockwell's turn as Justin Hammer, an industrialist so jealous of Tony Stark that he dresses like him, tries to woo the women in his life, and personally funds Vanko's quest for revenge. Meanwhile you've got Stark portrayed here as a functional alcoholic; in case you forgot, there's a scene in this movie where Tony literally gets drunk and pisses himself. In public. On purpose.
But a lot of the MCU's bad habits really come from
Iron Man 2: a weak central villain (Rourke has since bad-mouthed his experience on the film to anyone who will listen), a perfunctory third act, some CGI that hasn't aged particularly well. To its credit, the action beats run better with Favreau hiring
Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky to storyboard the big action sequences in response to criticism from the first film. And there's one scene where Tony hears an unexpected blast from the past that saves his life and reminds him why he started in the first place.
Those German exchange students were used to movies back home being more of a formal event even after introducing them to cheap Long Island iced teas. The thing about the audiences in Hampton Roads is that they have no problem responding to the big jokes and action beats, it's a shared experience. They were taken aback, I could tell, but they still had a good time. I always thought
Iron Man 2 wasn't as good as its predecessor but it does delve into some interesting areas. But there was the promise at the end of something greater, something a bit more mythical...
