For sure not as good as the first film, this film doesn’t have the same heart as the first one, and the story gets a bit muddled, but it is still an enjoyable popcorn action film. I think I am just too much of a fan of Iron Man comics, so the story confusion really gets to me. The story seems to be part original iron man, part extremis iron man, and mostly Ultimate Iron man with the whole Avengers Initiative run by Nick Fury, and other elements, and even the relationship with Pepper Potts seems a bit muddled here. Great effects and action, and I guess enjoyable enough, just missing something that made me not like it as well.

In Russia we see the completely tattooed Ivan Vanko (Michey Rourke with the oh so strange finger nails) watches his father die as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) announces he is Iron Man. The father says it should have been Ivan standing there, and as he dies says he can only give him his knowledge. Ivan goes to his father’s stuff and finds the original Howard Stark plans for the Arc Reactor which powers Iron Man, which have Starks and his father’s name on it, and goes and start to build himself his own Arc Reactor. 6 months later, Stark has re-instituted the Stark Expo to continue his father’s legacy, while the US government, and especially Senator Stern (Garry Shandling). The Senator calls Stark before congress and demands the Iron Man tech be given to the US government, but Stark refuses, arrogantly saying no other nation can get this tech within 10 years, especially the US who is using his former competitor Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) as their primary defense supplier. Stark meanwhile is dying, and hasn’t even told his assistant and closest confidant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). The Arc Reactor in his chest that powers Iron Man, and that keeps the shrapnel from killing him is giving him palladium poisoning, and he has not been able to find a suitable element to replace it. So he makes Pepper the CEO of Stark Industries, and gets the lawyer who watches the signing the papers, the lovely Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson) to become his new secretary as they all head off to Monaco.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

In Monaco Stark ends up taking over the driving of the race car his company owns, but on the track Vanko comes out with his Arc Reactor and large energy whips, destroying multiple cars, and cutting Tony’s car in half. Tony is almost killed by Pepper and his driver Happy Hogan (John Favreau) rush to him with his portable armor (briefcase sized). Tony then manages to defeat Vanko, who seems happy as he is led away, as he has shown Tony Stark has weaknesses. Tony goes to talk to Vanko in prison, telling him how he could have improved his whips, while Vanko asks how the Palladium in his chest is treating him.

Once in Prison, Justin Hammer fakes Vanko’s death, and gets him out to help work on his armor suits which had a fatal accident when testing for the military. Vanko agrees to work for him, but seems to have his own agenda.

Stark has his birthday party, where he gets ragingly drunk in his iron man armor, while Senator Stern is already saying the Monaco incident shows further proof that he should hand over the Iron Man tech. Starks friend Lt. Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) decides he has had enough, and goes and takes the the silver Iron Man Mark 2 armor and fights Tony, destroying his house, and delivering the armor to the military.

Nick Fury (Sam Jackson) director of SHIELD arrives at Stark’s house along with his agent Natalie, who is actually Natash Romanoff and agent Coulson (Clark Gregg). They tell Stark that Howard Stark was a founding member of SHIELD, and that the Arc Reactor tech, which he did work on with Vanko, but Vanko was leaking to Russia (so he had him deported) was only a first step, and that only Tony would be able to perfect it, which will also cure Tony. Tony watches all of his father’s old films, and learns of some secret.

Rhodes has brought in Hammer to help weaponize the Mark 2 Iron Man armor with his tech, and make it into War Machine.

Tony goes to see Pepper, and buys her strawberries, which she is allergic to, pissing her off. and sees that Natalie is now Pepper’s assistant, and they are going to have him removed, because he causes her nothing but trouble, but he leaves with this father’s old diorama of the 1974 Stark Expo, which he scans into his computer JARVIS (Paul Bettany) and realizes it is the map of the atomic structure of a new element that will save him. He sets out and creates the new element, and creates a new Arc Reactor.

Vanko calls Stark to tell him he is out for revenge.

At the Stark Expo Hammer unveils his new Military robotic Drones for each branch of the military, as well as Rhodes in War Machine. Stark Rushes to the Expo in his Iron Man Armor, which is is more powerful thanks to his new fixed Arc Reactor, but as he arrives, Vanko takes over the drones as well as War Machine and sets them on a rampage.

Natalie forces Hammer to tell her about Vanko, and she and Happy rush to stop him, but he has left, but they manage to return control of War Machine to Rhodes. Pepper has Hammer arrested and works on getting civilians out of the expo.

Rhodes and Stark fight off all the drones, and then confront Vanko who arrives in his improved Whiplash armor, but together they manage to defeat him, but the drones are set to self destruct. Stark rushes and just manages to save Pepper. On a building top Pepper resigns as CEO and she and Stark kiss as Rhodes watches. He then takes off in his War Machine armor.

Fury talks to stark and he reads Natalia’s report on him, saying that Iron Man would be good for the Avengers initiative, but not Stark, who would be a liability, but would make a good consultant (meaning that Hulk took place after this) which he agrees to do if Fury will get someone to present awards to them, and Stark and Rhodes are given medals by Senator Stern.

After the Credits we see agent Coulson go to a crater in the desert where he finds Mjolnir the hammer of Thor.

•••

I am looking forward to seeing this again on Blu-Ray to see if I like it more. Was disappointed by it. It just could have been so much more. At least they did keep the drunkenness of Tony in here, and I loved seeing Howard starts prototype for Captain America’s shield. Still he whole dying thing is much like Tony’s cancer in Ultimate Iron Man, I mean he is already dying because of the shrapnel right?

Got the blu-ray and watched it again, and probably enjoyed it more than last time, except for one thing that really bothered me. How did Rhodes power the Mark 1 Iron Man armor? For Tony it is his Arc reactor, but he doesn’t seem to have any extra arc reactors sitting around?

Also interesting is the deleted scenes, which except for the line as he jumps out of the plane all make for a much different movie where Tony Stark is just a total asshole! As bad as he got in the Marvel Civil War, or as bad as his worst alcoholism, and yet they were not full blown going into that. I am glad they reshot as it is much better without those scenes, but this movie still could have been better.