Why I Disliked Iron Man 2

In my post Why I hate Scott Pilgrim I mentioned that another 2010 movie I disliked was Iron Man 2. I don't have the same hate for it as I do Scott Pilgrim but I was highly disappointed in what I saw in theaters.

To begin, the movie had no focus. It starts off just fine but it slowly begins to spiral out of control after the first thirty minutes. It's like the writers wanted to do so much with the film and had some large four hour epic planned for us, only to have it cut down to about half that. The movie runs about five different storylines: 1. Tony Dying 2. Tony and the Military 3. Tony and Vanko's subplot 4. Tony vs. Justin Hammer 5. The Avengers. Unfortunately none of these plotlines had enough time to shine as the main storyline. All of them had just enough time to get you interested before they switched to another one.

The villains of the film weren't very good either. Vanko was pretty sinister in the beginning of the film and he was touted as the main villain, with Justin Hammer being a secondary villain. Somehow this manages to switch at the halfway point of the film. After Vanko breaks out of prison, he's sequestered away in Hammer's lab building robots for the rest of the movie. Hammer then takes over as the main villain. This switch didn't make sense to me, as Vanko is the one who can do the most. He's a scientist, and a badass. Hammer is the one with the money, but he's a wimp with no physical intimidation. While Sam Rockwell did a good job portraying the character, the focus should have been on Vanko fighting Stark in someway other than sitting in a lab, with a bird, building robots.

To make matters worse, they also squandered what could have been an amazing fight. They had a whole long sequence with Tony and War Machine fighting robots that once they got to the fight everyone actually wanted to see, (between the two of them and Vanko) it was over in a flash. The fight with the robots was fine and all, but it should have been cut down to make room for a fight that should have happened. The heroes should never win that easily.

There were also moments in the movie that were simply there because the writers couldn't think of any other way to solve the problem. Enter Nick Fury. Besides having a few scenes related to the Avengers Initiative (more on that in minute) he also serves as a Deus Ex Machina for the story. Any time that Tony is in a tough spot, Fury shows up with the answer. For example, take the scene where Tony is lamenting over the fact that he's dying and has no way to escape his fate. Who just happens to show up? Nick Fury. What does he tell him? "Go look in your dad's stuff. The answers there." Lo and behold, it's there and just like that, Tony Stark is cured! There had to be more creative ways to figure that one out. Or they could have gotten rid of the storyline entirely, the movie needed the room.

A complaint I share with most people is that the movie seemed like one long ass trailer for "The Avengers" movie. Black Widow was there, Nick Fury was there, and there were many mentions about getting the project together. The ending even focused on it (I'm not referring to the scene after the credits, I'm talking about the one with Fury and Stark in the briefing room). While it's great as a Marvel comic fan to see these little hints and nods, it detracted from the overall pace of the film. They also made no sense to many friends I have who don't follow the comics.

Of course ever movie has its good and bad sides. As for the good, I love Scarlet Johansson (especially as a red head), the fight at the race track was awesome, and the birthday scene between Rhodes and Tony was probably the best in the whole movie. This was another film that could have easily used more time though, especially if they were going to cram so much story in there.