The Avengers Movie Project Part 2: Iron Man 2

     Iron Man did a great job at kicking off this film franchise and shared universe, so of course when it came to the sequel... it didn't go quite as well. Iron Man 2 was not an incredibly popular film, and it especially isn't remembered fondly today. I couldn't tell you why that is, other than maybe having the same issue that Spider-Man 3 had... too many villains or threats. There is a lot going on in this movie to the point where writing this post has actually been one of my hardest. Just deciphering what is important versus what isn't is quite challenging when there are a lot of plot threads that don't go much of anywhere. Fortunately, I've been able to strap on my armor and fly through the fairly dense movie that is Iron Man 2, and have hopefully picked out the parts that are most important. All the stars are here, though S.H.I.E.L.D. has a bigger role to play this time around, as you'd expect now after Nick Fury introduced himself in the post-credit scene from the first movie. Anyway, let's calibrate our expectations to not expect too much, and do our best to enjoy this movie which I actually liked a lot more than I remembered!

I am still Iron Man (just try to stop me)!

    As I said before, Iron Man 2 has grown to be disliked by a lot of people, but honestly I'm not really sure why that is. This movie is a weird one, I will say, as it shows a pretty devastating and crazy end-of-life crisis. I would call it a mid-life crisis, but it's not the middle, as Tony Stark is dying at a remarkable rate. The element that he uses to power his electromagnet in his chest is slowly killing him, and there's little he can do about it, or so he thinks. On the other side of the world, in Siberia, a man who apparently worked with Tony's father, is actually dying and tells his son of his success in building the arc reactor, causing his son to go crazy and build one for himself when he sees the success of Iron Man. We see two pretty major threats here, but a third one emerges as the U.S. Government calls for Tony to turn over his Iron Man technology to them, which he refuses to do. Right off the bat we see a whole lot of different interests aiming directly for Stark's head, and he refuses to tell anyone about the fact that he's dying. He knows he has a very short time left and he goes in for one last party, the Stark Expo, which is a lot of the impetus for the film's events. Howard Stark put on a technology showcase every year for a long time (we'll get to that later) and Tony has decided to bring that back now that the Iron Man suit has revolutionized the game.

    There's a lot in this movie, as you can already tell, so I'm just going to hit some highlights here. Whiplash appears (it's the guy from the beginning of the movie who was the son of the Russian scientist) and proves to the world that Tony Stark isn't as invincible as he says, but is captured and put in jail. This leads the government to continue pressing Stark to turn over his technology while he continues to do increasingly risky and ill-advised things, eventually leading to his friend, Rhodey, stealing an Iron Man suit and fighting him, then taking the suit to the military. Tony's business rival, Justin Hammer, is a major threat in this movie and sees how Whiplash was able to hurt Tony, then busts him out of jail. He convinces the guy to build him Iron Man suits, but instead he builds robots to act as soldiers. Hammer doesn't think anything about it, and eventually goes along with it. This of course blows up in his face when he's making his presentation and the robots all turn on him and the audience at the Stark Expo. On top of all this, Tony is working to discover an element that will keep him alive for a long time which will replace the Palladium in the electromagnet that is slowly poisoning him. He does it with the help of Nick Fury and Natasha Romanov, his new assistant and secret SHIELD agent, AKA Black Widow (you may want to keep an eye on her). In the end, Tony is fine, slightly shaken, but everyone is safe, and there are now two Iron Men, the second suit being flown by Rhodey, AKA War Machine. Pepper and Tony are back to their normal relationship after Pepper's anger with him about his reckless behavior. Realizing the health concerns that Tony was facing, she forgives him and it looks like smooth sailing for the pair. Hammer and Whiplash both go to jail for a long time, and The Government gets off of Tony's back about giving up the Iron Man technology. In a post-credit scene, Agent Coulson goes to New Mexico to investigate a mysterious hammer in a crater that appeared to fall from the sky. I'm sure that's not going to be important at all, we can forget about that I'm sure.

Walt? Is that you?

    I mentioned earlier in this post that Tony has brought the Stark Expo back after being away for many years following the death of his old man, who was the architect of the event. What I didn't tell you is that there's a presentation here of Howard Stark presenting the idea of the Expo when he was first pitching it, and the video's inspiration was very clearly drawn from Walt Disney's video about EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. If you've read my EPCOT post from a few months ago, I won't go into all the elaborate details that I mentioned there, but in broad strokes, these two presentations are very similar. Both are talking about a futuristic model for society, all of the areas in the Expo are referred to as pavilions, just like how Epcot at launch was separated into so many pavilions based on different subject matters. Ultimately, both Walt Disney and Howard Stark had visions for the future, and while neither of them ended up being exactly what they had originally planned, they led to a product that was necessary for the world's betterment. Howard's model took the cake, however, as it actually ended up laying out the structure of an atom somehow, which led to the synthesizing of the new element which helped Tony save his life. Howard's presentation is a really nice touch, and honestly one of my favorite bits about the movie, even though it's a fairly minor point.

    Iron Man 2 is a pretty good movie. It's far from the best that the MCU has to offer, but it's a fun time and gives us some more time to bond with the world's favorite Genius-Billionaire-Playboy-Philanthropist. That's always a good time in my book. In addition to this, we see much more character growth from Rhodey to the point where he's actually a player in the superhero game, if you will. My dad really liked this movie, by the way. He loves Tony and his quick wit, so he's really enjoyed him as a character so far, and let's hope he continues enjoying the experience on as I keep showing him all of the movies in order.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. It's been a few weeks since I gave an update on the MCU marathon, but I assure you, we've been watching more and more every week. I've got a lot of catching up to do here, as we're currently well into Phase 2, but I'll keep posting here with more updates! I hope you're all doing well, and I hope you have a good week. I'll talk to you all again next Friday!