Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Sequels are tricky business. Occasionally, as in the cases of “The Godfather Part II,” “The Dark Knight,” or “The Empire Strikes Back,” they take advantage of the fact that audiences are familiar with the characters and the basic premises of the story, and take it to deeper, more interesting, more complicated places. However, this seems to be the exception that proves the rule: 90% of the time, sequels are a waste of time, a lame rehash of what went before. Think “Blair Witch 2,” “The Matrix Reloaded,” “Teen Wolf Too,”  “Batman Returns,” or the entire “Star Wars” prequel set.   (We won’t even get into the difficulty of making a decent third movie. That’s as rare as a nun in a bikini.)

So to say that “Iron Man 2” is pretty good, if not quite as good as the original, is to say that it’s better than 90% of sequels. It doesn’t reach that “Dark Knight” level; nothing is added to the Iron Man legacy here. But it retains the trademark wit of the first movie; it’s still light on its feet, witty, clever, and fun. It’s odd to say, but this is a legitimate action franchise where the action sequences are the least interesting thing on the screen. Instead of counting the minutes between spectacular mash-ups, you’ll find yourself counting the minutes those spectacular mash-ups eat up, and waiting for the film to get back to what it does best—dialogue, character, and dynamics.

We pick up right where we left off; in fact, the final lines of the first film play under the title sequences of “Iron Man 2.”  Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man, and he wants the world to know it. He’s also dying; a fact he’d rather keep to himself. Turns out the thingamajig that saved his life is slowly killing him. Oh, the irony. Gwyneth Paltrow returns as his assistant/love interest. The chemistry and comedic timing between Downey Jr. and Paltrow is better than what you’ll find in most romantic comedies.

The villains (aside from the government) are Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke. Rockwell, who plays rival weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer, steals most of the scenes he’s in as an overly dramatic megalomaniac who has the ego to match Stark, but not the IQ. Rourke is Ivan Vanko, a mad Russian scientist who has reasons to want Stark dead. Rourke is adequate in the role; he’s not given all that much to do, really, but he is good at growling, has a passable evil laugh, and is able to convince us that he can be both a tattooed Russian hood with silver teeth and a brilliant hacker/scientist. Though they work together, the two villains are opposites; Hammer is all show and bluster, while Vanko sits back and smirks, knowing that he’s smarter than Hammer, and will have the last (evil) laugh.

To round out the cast, let’s add a very dull and wooden Scarlett Johansson; we are aware she has something to hide before she really has anything to hide it behind. Johansson is disappointing, but the introduction of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury is enjoyable and intriguing. (I have a comic book in which Nick Fury insists that if anyone ever makes a movie about the Avengers, Samuel L. Jackson should play him. Sure enough.) And somewhere between the heroes and the villains is Don Cheadle, who replaces Terrence Howard (his first line: “It’s me, I’m here, deal with it.”) as the military dude that Downey Jr. trusts and turns to. Even director Jon Favreau gets in on the action—literally. His cameo appearance in the first movie has evolved into a full-on supporting role; he’s Tony’s driver, boxing partner, bodyguard, and sometime sidekick. He even gets to beat up a bad guy.

Back to the story. As I mentioned, Iron Man is dying. The presence or possibility of supervillains appearing must seem somewhat irrelevant to a man who doesn’t expect to see his next birthday anyway. This leads to a few scenes that feel like they’re stolen from an episode of VH1’s “Behind the Music:” he parties, he drinks, he drives fast cars too fast. He embarrasses and exasperates the people who care about him.  Wait…Stark always did those things. The difference is that before, he did them because he thought he was immortal. Now he does them because his mortality is all he can think about.

The supervillains don’t know that he’s dying, however, and aren’t ready to be irrelevant. In the most exciting action sequence, Rourke steps into the middle of a Formula One race track wielding some kind of electrified whips, and cuts in half the car Downey Jr. is driving. Downey Jr. looks small, soft, and very, very mortal next to the bulging muscles and shiny teeth of Rourke; he survives thanks to the absolute best suitcase-packing job ever in the universe. It pays to have a competent assistant, especially if you’re a superhero. After the battle, Downey Jr. gives him a few tips about how to make his supervillain apparatus better. The guy really does have a death wish. Rockwell rescues/recruits Rourke, and now the guy with the money has met the guy with the brains. Pretty clear where this is going.

“Iron Man 2” lacks the emotional resonance of the first film; I think we all identified with Tony Stark in that one. Who in America hasn’t felt hijacked by terrorists and/or big corporate interests and been required to rely on ingenuity and persistence to work out of a problem? Who hasn’t wanted to fly into the desert and open a can of whoop-ass on the bad guys? There’s nothing like that here. “Iron Man 2” is a straightforward action movie; a comic book story set in a comic book world. Still, it hits its marks, and is a fun movie, an enjoyable roller coaster ride, with just enough action sequences to keep teenage boys happy while supplying more than enough wit, humor, and dialogue to satisfy the rest of us as well.

By Willie Krischke — August 29, 2008.  

Ahh, finally….a summer comedy that is actually funny. Really, really funny. For more than a few moments at a time.

After a series of so-bad-they’re-bad flicks (Love Guru, Zohan, Step Brothers) and a minor disappointment (Pineapple Express), “Tropic Thunder” delivers the goods. It is hilarious. It’s stupid-funny, and not just in bits, but all throughout. It is manic and smart and did I say funny? This is the kind of comedy you know you will see more than once. Without knowing what the lines are yet, you know you will be quoting lines from it.

You’re going to hear that it’s offensive, that you should boycott this one, because of material about the mentally disabled, or about African Americans, or pandas, or Asian movie taste. Well, I don’t fall into any of the demogaphics that might be offended, so I can’t really say for sure, whether it’s offensive or not. But I don’t understand the protests. What I saw was a Hollywood satire; that is, a movie that at every second and in every possible way, makes fun of the way things are presented in movies. Things like mental disability and “the plight of the African American man.”  And pandas. For instance, it makes fun of actors who play mentally or developmentally disabled characters in naked grabs for awards, and the industry that responds in kind. That’s a long ways away from making fun of the mentally disabled. In fact, the point it makes is so sharp, after watching it, you might want to boycott “Rain Man.”

[metacafe]http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2051856/never_go_full_retard/[/metacafe]

But really, I don’t want to talk about who might be offended by this movie, and why. I want to talk about how funny it is. I mean, funny. I’m trying to remember the last time I laughed this hard, and relished the jokes this much. I think it was “The Big Lebowski.” That was, what, ten years ago? I’ve seen a lot of funny movies since then. None as funny as this. The first ten minutes are funnier than anything else this summer, as “Tropic Thunder” opens with fake trailers, introducing all of our major characters. There’s

-Jack Black, who seems to be a white Eddie Murphy, coming off a series of movies starring himself, and himself, and himself, all in fat suits and farting a lot.

-Ben Stiller, a sort of Stallone, coming off his own series of movies, in which the earth melts, and then freezes, and then melts again… or something like that.

-Robert Downey Jr., the consummate method actor, the kind who uses Oscars as door stops and “never breaks character until the DVD commentary is done.”

These guys get together to make “the war movie to end all war movies,” and, well, pretty much do. End all war movies, that is. After everything that goes wrong on this set, it’s hard to imagine anyone daring to make a war movie again. Director Steve Coogan can’t manage his actors, or, more accurately, can’t manage his actor’s agents, personal assistants, and caterers, and after he gets certain parts of his anatomy handed to him on a platter by his producer decides to go au natural and make “Blair Witch goes to War.” I’m not going to tell you who plays the producer. Probably you’ve heard already. But I hadn’t, and when it dawned on me, fully halfway through the movie, it was such a sublime comedic moment, I’d hate to be the one who snatches it away from you. It’d be like telling you how “The Sixth Sense” ends.

Black, Stiller, and Downey Jr, all give pretty much one-note performances, but they manage to add up to a comedic symphony. These guys are playing to the rafters, and it’s a joy to watch. But in the end, the movie belongs to the straight men – Jay Baruchel and Brandon T. Jackson (in a role that all the rapper-wannabe-actors like Ludacris and Xzibit should’ve fought for, but apparently didn’t.) It’d be nice if Dreamworks would honor the old straight man/funny man 60/40 split that Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello followed–- straight man gets 60, because funny men are a dime a dozen, but a good straight man’s hard to find. But they won’t. This is Downey Jr., Black, and Stiller we’re talking about, after all. And they may be willing (and able) to make a movie that fiercely satirizes the Hollywood system, but in the end, they’re stilling going to take home their usual checks.

This review is getting long, and there are so many things I haven’t even mentioned yet. The difficulty of writing about comedies is that jokes are much funnier than descriptions of jokes. Go see it. And then write me and tell me about your favorite parts. And in ten years, we’ll have a “Tropic Thunder” party, and ten bucks says it’s just as funny then as it is now. Or funnier.

Recommended

• to anyone who really needs a solid laugh.
• to those few and brave who’ve lived through the rest of this summer’s comedies.
• to fans of sharp, perceptive, totally over-the-top satire.
• to anyone sick of Hollywood pretension and ready to see a few sacred cows barbecued.

Not Recommended

• to anyone who thinks they may be offended by it. You probably will.

Seems like lately, superheroes are allowed to do just about anything.   They can be dark and conflicted, angry, impulsive, alcoholic, unreliable, tortured by inner demons, even from hell themselves.   What they can’t be allowed to do, though, is have fun.  Spiderman gets punished for having fun.   Wolverine doesn’t know the meaning of the word.   And Batman?   Don’t ask.    So “Iron Man” does the unthinkable – it actually gives us a superhero who has fun in the superhero suit, and actually, is a lot of fun outside the suit as well. 

Robert Downey Jr. is not the type of actor you cast as a superhero.   He’s way too old;  Spiderman, the new Superman and Batman are all under 30.   Downey Jr.’s 43, though he looks 35.   On top of that, Downey Jr.’s quick, witty, and just a touch effeminate.   He made perfect sense wearing that scarf in “Zodiac.”   Strangely, he also makes perfect sense in the bright red Iron Man suit.  The thing is, he’s so much fun to watch out of the suit, it’s almost a disappointment when he puts it on.

Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark, a wealthy, brilliant arms manufacturer who never sleeps, drives fast and expensive cars, and beds a different model every night.   He gets whatever he wants – except Pepper Potts.   Played wonderfully by Gwyneth Paltrow, she is Stark’s assistant, the kind who plans his meetings, picks up his dry cleaning, and, occasionally, takes out the trash.   The chemistry between them is palpable and delightful.

On a trip to demonstrate some of his high-tech toys, Stark gets kidnapped by the kind of terrorists who seem to prefer caves to more normal dwellings with things like fresh air and sunlight.   They demand that he make them a weapon, with the defense-industry equivalent of a hot glue gun and elbow grease.   Instead of building the Mother of All Bombs, Stark builds a giant iron suit and escapes.    He then builds a better suit, but so do his enemies, who arranged the kidnapping in the first place.   And, of course, the movie ends with a showdown.

Director Jon Favreau has a talent for storytelling; he makes every scene count, full of effervescent energy, wit, and verve.    Stark spends a good half the movie refining his suit, and he shares more amusing banter with his tools than other fully human sidekicks get in some movies.   But the fully human sidekicks are no slouches here, either.   Terrance Howard takes a turn as Stark’s military liason, and a bald Jeff Bridges makes a wonderfully sinister Judas.  And the action scenes don’t disappoint.   Besides the fact that it’s awfully fun (and righteous) to watch an arms dealer destroy his own products, the scenes are gracefully choreographed. After being battered with images in action scenes from movies like “Hulk” and “Transformers” it’s a refreshing change.

Recommended

• to fans of the old school comic books – back when the heroes were having fun.
• to anyone interested in light, fun, funny, charismatic action films.   Haven’t seen much of that for a while.

Not Recommended

• if you prefer the dark and conflicted the witty and fun.

“Iron Man” was released yesterday, September 30, on DVD.