IRON MAN 2 (2010) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

iron man 2 (2010) movie

Genre              |   Science Fiction

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   124 minutes

Released         |   7 May 2010 

cast

Robert Downey Jr. ... Tony Stark
Gwyneth Paltrow ... Pepper Potts
Don Cheadle ... Lt. Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes
Scarlett Johansson ... Natalie Rushman / Natasha Romanoff
Sam Rockwell ... Justin Hammer
Mickey Rourke ... Ivan Vanko
Samuel L. Jackson ... Nick Fury
Clark Gregg ... Agent Coulson
John Slattery ... Howard Stark
Garry Shandling ... Senator Stern
Paul Bettany ... JARVIS (voice)
Kate Mara ... U.S. Marshal
​Jon Favreau ... Happy Hogan

director

Jon Favreau

writer

Justin Theroux ... (screenplay)
 
Stan Lee ... (Marvel comic book) and
Don Heck ... (Marvel comic book) and
Larry Lieber ... (Marvel comic book) and
Jack Kirby ... (Marvel comic book)

cinematographer

​Matthew Libatique ... director of photography

music

​John Debney

film editor

Dan Lebental
Richard Pearson

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​​​​​​​​623,933,331

Australia                 $​​​​​​22,418,342

North America       $​​312,433,331

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movie minutiae

Jon Favreau had a lot of friction with the Marvel higher-ups due to their constant intervention, to the point that they were having him rewrite the script as the film was still shooting. In particular, elements such as the increased prominence of the S.H.I.E.L.D. subplot were the result of a need to establish the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, in preparation for THE AVENGERS (2012), at the expense of the coherence of the film's own plot. These disputes got so bad that Favreau turned down directing IRON MAN 3 (2013).

​According to director Jon Favreau, the technology in this film was portrayed as more futuristic: "After the first film, a number of tech companies talked about how uncanny a lot of our depictions of technology had turned out to be, and how many different films and videogames ended up being inspired by the imagery we used. This forced us to go a bit further into the future, and try and change the nature of this technology. If we'd just duplicated what happened in the first one, we would be behind the curve. So now we're dealing with holograms, the interface within the suit, and the suit being upgraded too."

​Samuel L. Jackson was promised that Nick Fury would be given more screentime by Jon Favreau. Jackson almost didn't return to play Fury due to problems with contract negotiations, but secured a landmark nine-picture deal to play Nick Fury not only in this movie, but in many other Marvel Studio productions.

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related movies

IRON MAN (2013)

IRON MAN 2 (2010) MOVIE IMAGES

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IRON MAN 2 (2010) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Tony Stark is under pressure from various sources, including the government, to share his technology with the world. He must find a way to fight them while also tackling his other enemies.

IRON MAN 2 (2010) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 7 May 2015

​​Pop Movee Rating

IRON MAN 2 came a mere two years after the break-out success of the first IRON MAN film in 2008. Due primarily to Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of Tony Stark/Iron Man, the first film found a mainstream audience who could relate to the hero deriving his abilities from his intellect; as opposed to some kind of genetic mutation or alien DNA. The fact that Stark turns a dodgy ticker into a way to weaponise himself was the masterstroke and proved to be fertile ground for the first film to till.

Marvel Studios desire to capitalise on IRON MAN’s success brought a sequel that was stuffed full of ideas and characters but lacked the strength of the first film’s plot structure and was burdened by Mickey Rourke’s interpretation of his character and looked more like a piece of stunt casting off the back of his career resurgence with his Oscar nominated performance in THE WRESTLER (2008).

Whether comic fans agree or not, the Marvel Studios way of bringing a story to the screen seems to benefit when there are multiple writers involved. The first IRON MAN had two teams of writers who received Writers Guild credit for the screenplay, but, in the case of IRON MAN 2, actor and sometimes writer Justin Theroux received sole credit for Tony Stark’s second outing.

In a testimony to Robert Downey Jr’s influence at Marvel Studios in the wake of the first film’s success, he recommended Theroux to Marvel executives after his involvement on Theroux and Ben Stiller’s TROPIC THUNDER (2008).

Theroux’s story sees Tony battling with personal demons, as he discovers that the Palladium Core in his Arc Reactor is slowly poisoning his body. Elsewhere, Ivan Vanko (Rourke) vows to avenge his father, who had worked with Howard Stark years earlier but had been deported back to the Soviet Union in disgrace. The establishment of both the internal and external threat to Stark are interesting concepts that struggle to take hold in comparison to the over-the-top set pieces that punctuate the film.

The most interesting part of IRON MAN 2 is the emergence of Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Clark Gregg in their respective roles as Nick Fury, Natasha Romanoff and Phil Coulson.

Scarlett Johansson is especially good in her Marvel debut. While her character’s origins are not explored in IRON MAN 2, Johansson’s performance is nuanced enough that the viewer gets a sense that her pathway to the S.H.I.E.L.D organisation has been wrought with danger. Clark Gregg also establishes himself with his matter-of-fact approach to everything going on around him and, at times, seems to be channeling Jack Webb’s Sgt. Joe Friday from the classic TV show DRAGNET.

Unfortunately, the villain side of the character ledger is a big stumbling block for IRON MAN 2. Mickey Rourke is miscast as Vanko/Whiplash and, if the story is to be believed, the deal to cast him was done by Downey Jr. at a Golden Globes ceremony! The normally reliable Sam Rockwell also seems out of place as competing military industrialist Justin Hammer.

One of the big changes from the first to the second film was the recasting of Lt. James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes, who was played by Terrence Howard in IRON MAN and by Don Cheadle in IRON MAN 2. The removal of Howard from the project is possiblY one of the best mystery movie ideas not yet produced by Hollywood. On one side was Howard, who claimed he was offered less money for his second appearance than his first. No one from Marvel Studios has ever commented on the situation, but it’s clear that Howard is not an easy character to deal with and had an over-inflated sense of his worth making it a relatively easy decision to recast the part. Another story goes that IRON MAN Director Jon Favreau disliked working with Howard and was forced to make significant changes to his scenes because his performance just wasn’t cutting it. When it came time to do the second film, Favreau made it clear that ‘Rhodey’ had to be recast. With that, the always reliable Don Cheadle slipped into the role and made it his own, along the way almost erasing Howard’s IRON MAN performance from viewer’s collective memory banks.

IRON MAN 2 saw a number of Favreau’s frequent collaborators return to help him bring the story to life. Matthew Libatique returned as director of photography, having been nominated for Oscar in between the first and second IRON MAN films for his work on the Natalie Portman showcase BLACK SWAN (2010).

Favourite Favreau film editor Dan Labental returned to piece the project together and was joined by Richard Pearson, who had worked high profile projects like QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008), THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (2004) and MEN IN BLACK II (2002).

Production Designer J. Michael Riva returned for the follow-up along with supervising art director David F. Klassen. Given the number of carry-over technicians from the first film, it’s easy to see how Jon Favreau was able to meet the demanding turnaround schedule for IRON MAN 2.

The price for speed, however, was cost. IRON MAN 2 ended up spending in excess of $200 million just on production, a figure that would have easily exceeded $300 million by the time marketing costs were included. It’s a huge amount of money to spend on a film that is not regarded as one of Marvel Studio’s best efforts.

IRON MAN 2 (2010) USEFUL LINKS

Iron Man 2 - Wikipedia
​Iron Man 2 (2010) - IMDb
​Iron Man 2 (2010) - Rotten Tomatoes​

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