Full metal jacket shows signs of rust
Cinema
Daniel Carey
THERE’S a famous scene in ‘Braveheart’ where the ragtag Scottish army, faced with overwhelming English opposition, seems about to flee rather than fight. Trying to steady the nerves of his soldiers, William Wallace (Mel Gibson) introduces himself. One young man isn’t convinced. “William Wallace is seven feet tall!” he shouts. “Yes, I’ve heard,” says Wallace, taking the heckler in his stride. “Kills men by the hundreds. And if HE were here, he’d consume the English with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse.”
The lightning we see in ‘Iron Man 2’ comes via the electrified whips of Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), the most intimidating on-screen Russian since the similarly-named Ivan Drago went toe to toe with Rocky. He makes a dramatic appearance during this sequel’s best scene, which takes place at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Like a militarised version of Neil Horan, the now-defrocked priest who ran out in front of Formula One car at Silverstone in 2003, Vanko hops onto the track and causes chaos. It’s a decent sequence, and was certainly the liveliest F1 race this writer can remember. Furthermore, the movie needed a face-off so badly that I was willing to ignore the plot hole that has Vanko lining up an attack in Monte Carlo long before he knows that his enemy Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) will be in the race.
The picture opens with Stark’s public acknowledgement that he is Iron Man. Cut to the man in the full metal jacket leaping from the clouds and into his company’s popular expo. It’s a spectacular entrance, and Downey is clearly the right man for the role. Having basked in the adulation of the crowd, he finds himself before a US senator (Garry Shandling) who wants him to hand over his special suit to the government.
Stark refuses, explaining that he has ‘successfully privatised world peace’, and humiliates his business rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), convincing the public that the attempts by rogue states to emulate the Iron Man concept are doomed to failure. The events of Monaco prove otherwise.
It’s refreshing to see a superhero who’s not racked by self-doubt, but ‘Iron Man 2’ has its problems too. Rather than properly explore the reason for Vanko’s hatred of Stark and concentrate on that particular duel, we get a man fighting on multiple fronts – against the government, against fellow weapons manufacturers, potentially against a sympathetic army colonel (Don Cheadle), and for his own health. Basically, there’s way too much going on.
The film is at its strongest – surprise, surprise – when Iron Man is living up to his name. Sadly, we don’t seem suited and booted often enough. The cast are clearly having a ball, but there are too many characters popping up. Director Jon Favreau is happy to play the side-kick and Gwyneth Paltrow reprises her role as Stark’s assistant Pepper Potts. Scarlett Johansson is a legal adviser with something to hide, while the most pointless cameo comes from Samuel L Jackson (complete with eye patch).
“Everything is achievable through technology,” Tony’s dead father says on a Stark Industries video. “I’m your nuclear deterrent,” Stark Jr tells the Senate Armed Services Committee. But in the era of low-tech terrorism and asymmetrical warfare, such ideas seem quaintly out of date. Although Downey regular sports his famous grin, ‘Iron Man 2’ seems to be missing the element of fun that was present in, say, ‘Die Hard 4.0’. After the splendidly crowd-pleasing first flick, hopefully Favreau can clean out the rust in time for the inevitable ‘Iron Man 3’.
Rating 5 out of 10
