Iron Man 2
The non-review
- Release Date: 26 April 2010
- Running Time: 125 min.
- Budget: 200 million USD
- Box office: 623,9 million USD
A lot of people didn’t like this movie so much, and for sure I’m not a part of this crowd. I enjoyed it a lot, like Hulk there’s maybe a lack in the story, but it enterteined me a lot. Let me explain.
First of all, the villain: Whiplash alias Ivan Vanko — played by a great Mickey Rourke. Whiplash is one of my favourite villain in the Marvel Universe, and in this movie he has a lot of reasons to be mad at Tony, well to be precise he should been mad at Howard Stark (who, by the way, remembers me Walt Disney a lot) for ruining his father’s life, but you know, comics teach us that when you grow up in that manner it’s just a matter fo time to became a super villain who wants to kill a super hero or the entire humanity. I mean he’s entitled to make his villain things.
Then, there’s a great Pepper Potts who has the arduous task to handle Tony eccentric personality, running meanwhile the Stark Enterprises. I noticed a marked improvement in this character, the way she moves smoothly in Tony’s life showing him that he is just a man and not everything turn around him, even as the new CEO of Stark Enterprises she shows Tony that he’s not necessary, he’s like a kid playing with his super-heroes-themed toys.
Rhody is what keeps Tony connected with reality, his best friend showing him the reality of things. In the movie it’s not clear why Rhoadie steal the Iron Man suite, but it’s great because it shows how War Machine born.
Sam Rockwell did a great job playing Justin Hammer, as one of the annoying character of the entire MCU. He’s just a looser.
Just for context, in MCU Timeline Iron Man 2 take place slightly after The Incredible Hulk, how do we know it? Remember the Hulk’s pre-credit scene where Tony talks with General Ross about the Avengers initiative? Well, in Iron Man 2, when Tony meets Nick Fury at donuts shop, they talk about that topic in a way they know what they’re talkin about, with Tony saying he don’t wanna be a part of it anymore.
In this movie there’s also space to introduce Natasha Romanoff as the new Tony’s assistant. There are some scenes where it’s clear she’s not just an “assistant”, making clear through the end, she’s involved into S.H.I.E.L.D. things.
All this mix of complexity, and a lot of action makes Iron Man 2 a great movie. Not the best offcourse, but really enjoyable.
REFERENCES
Here the references about the future MCU movie.
The Incredible Hulk connections
I just talk about Nick Fury and Tony Stark at the donuts shop, other than that in another meeting there’s a screen showing image of Hulk battle.
In the same scene there’s a clear reference to Black Panther with an orange circle pointing to Africa.
and it’s clear other super-hero-things are happening around the world.
As for Black Panther on the background monitor we can se orange circles that ar pointing: California — maybe for Iron Man?, New Mexico — maybe for Thor?, New York — maybe for Spider-Man?, Greenland — maybe for Captain America?. Not sure for the one in the ocean.
Captain America memorabilia
While Tony stark trying to sintetize a new element, Phil Coulson take something that resemble a sort of prototype of Captain America’s shield. Someone says it’s a prototype studied by Howard Stark, but in Iron Man 1 there were the same object laying on a table, in my opinion is just MCU peeps cooking stuffs.
Introducing Thor
During the post-credit scene, we are introduced to the next character: Thor. The scene shows Phil Coulson arriving to a crater in New Mexico with Thor’s mighty fried Mjolnir.
STAN LEE AND OTHERS CAMEOS
In this movie there are three interesting Cameo.
Obviously I start with Stan Lee, which in this movie plays a Tony Stark’s friend or fan, not clear. Waiting for him at the exit of the Stark Expo in a chaotic sequence
Right after that, we can see Tony greeting a man and referring to him as “Larry” this is Larry Ellison Oracle’s CEO — and late in the movie during the final battle we’ll see also a building with Oracle gigantic sign.
Slightly after while Tony and Pepper attends to a Gala in Moanco they meets with Elon Musk
In my opinion this movie deserve 4/5 stars!
Onto the next one!
