ArtisticallyChill

I will probably see this flick more times than THOR. CAPTAIN AMERICA just looks to be a much tighter film in terms of characters, the story and the dialogue.

~ LoneWolf

Despite suffering from a bit of ‘sequel-itis’, Iron Man 2 is definitely a better superhero sequel than most others in the past. It’s not as great as Spider-Man 2, but definitely a million times better than Spider-Man 3, The X-men sequels and F4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Where it suffers is from the usual suspects of ‘sequel-itis’.

The movie dragged in some scenes that could have been done without and this goes hand in hand with the other symptom of having too many characters trying to get enough screen time for us to care about them. Nick Fury, Black Widow, Justing Hammer, and even Happy Hogan seemed to stretch their roles a little too much for my taste. I would have solved this by:

• Keeping the main focus of the story on further developing Whiplashe’s character and on the villain, Tony Stark himself. This would go on for about 1/3 of the movie.
• The birthday party scene must go. It would have been better to see Iron Man trying to save the day while intoxicated. Destruction and slight hilarity ensues. Pepper is then forced to call Rhodie. She helps him put on the Mark II armor by bypassing any safety and security protocols Tony set up for the suit since she is his most trusted confidant and current CEO of Stark Industries.
• All scenes of Nick Fury are to be replaced with video communications. Have him contact Tony from the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier when Tony finds the mysterious package dropped off by Agent Coulson after Tony decides to play drunken superhero and Rhodie makes off with the Mark II armor.
• Black Widow remains undercover and limiting her screen time until the very end when she alone goes into Hammer Industries to override Whiplashes control over War Machine.
• Happy Hogan remains in the car after Black Widow incapacitates him with a ‘tranq’ dart when he insists on helping.
• Whiplash kills Justin Hammer with one of his drones after he takes control of them at the Stark Expo.
• Iron Man/War Machine vs Whiplash end battle should go on a bit longer now that everyone else’s scenes have been cut/reduced. Rhode should only last halfway through the battle since he is still a noob when it comes to piloting the suit. He gets knocked out while Iron Man and Whiplash duke it out in a well choreographed fight scene until the end when Whiplash has them both on their knees then they both take Whiplash out with that ‘Repulsor High Five’ move.
• Avengers. Yes, we get it. There’s going to be an Avengers movie. Please stop shoving that notion in our faces. The Avengers Initiative shouldn’t be mentioned until the end, in the final video communication between Nick Fury and Tony Stark.

And there you have it, my cut of Iron Man 2. Despite its flaws, Iron Man 2 still remains a chill flick in comparison to previous superhero sequels. Robert Downey Jr. did an outstanding job of bringing the Tony Stark character to life, showing us that not all superheroes are boy scouts. Let’s hope that Iron Man 3 will learn from the mistakes of Iron Man 2 and not let the franchise fall deeper into ‘sequel-itis’ forcing another reboot like in the comic books that won’t be at all that great (see Punisher Warzone, Spider-man 4 and X-men First Class).

~ LoneWolf