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In the long wait leading up to Iron Man 2 (heck it, feels like they were showing teasers and trailers for it just months after the first film stopped running) we were treated to numerous surprises and images to whet our appetites for it. There was that great gag of Iron Man in the hole of a donut, Mickey Rourke dual-wielding power-charged whips and slicing an F1 car in half… And I remember the ooohs and aaahs inspired by the first trailer that had Iron Man and War Machine back to back shooting baddies in a seeming tip of the hat to John Woo shootouts. And the revelation of Iron Man’s portable armor, that too, created its own online fervor. Amidst the excitement, the one worry this brought to my mind was that the movie might find itself crippled under the weight of its own behemoth-sized media-hype machine.

After one viewing (of what will probably be many more viewings) this worry was put to rest--catually, it was pretty much demolished. Much like Tony Stark himself, while Iron Man 2 seemingly relished in promoting itself to dangerous levels of overexposure, it then surprises us with charm, wit, and a genuine likability beneath the sheen of the slick media product.

Following the example of many other good sequels, Iron Man 2 goes for bigger and broader, while at the same time keeping the core things that were likable about the first movie intact. Where the first movie focused on the origin of Iron Man and the ensuing power struggle within Stark industries, here we zoom out to be treated to a much larger backdrop. Most of the world is enthralled by Iron Man, but those not held in that thrall are plotting all kinds of evil against him. There’s a mostly-believable super-villain, a conniving but inept military-industry Tony Stark wannabe (played fun with just the right touch of "trying to be cool as Stark but coming off as a dork" by Sam Rockwell), and the American government/military-industrial complex that wants its hands on the Iron Man suit.  Oh and--not a spoiler as it’s shown in the film’s first few minutes--the power core that’s keeping Stark alive is also slowly, but with gaining speed, killing him.

Stark’s support team, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts and director Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan get a lot of material to work with. And coming in as Rhodey is Don Cheadle, whose first onscreen appearance coincides with some witty-meta dialogue that addresses both the scene and his replacing Terrence Howard. We also get Scarlett Johansson as someone from Stark Industries legal department, but anyone who has seen the trailers knows she’s more than that. We also get to see a lot more of Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury in some very fun and funny scenes.

The big addition (both literally and figuratively) to the cast is Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko. Rourke is authentically scary-looking--a big hulking dude with massive muscles and an imposing presence… And that’s even before you take into account his makeup for this movie. He’s got tattoos all over the place (meant to indicate his years in Siberia), gold teeth and some funky dreads that match his penchant for whips. He plays Vanko with a seething malice.

Where the tendency of most actors when playing a super-villain is to go big and crazy, Rourke turns it all inward. It’s in his restrained gestures, the contained nature of this man’s rage that, we are meant to be frightened. Put in a room with Tony Stark, his sworn enemy, he barely moves, just smirks, and he never raises his voice, talking calmly and coolly. The quiet, deliberate movements that Rourk imbues Vanko serve as a fantastic foil to the outspoken Stark, and, after his back story is revealed, one does find some sympathy for the anti-Western, anti-Imperialist beliefs Vanko holds.

But as with the first film, at the end of the day, this is still Tony Stark’s/Iron Man’s movie. One of the elements of the character that the movie plays with to great effect is Tony Stark’s playboy status. This man is a bonafide casanova, a man who loves women, partying, having fun, driving fast cars, playing music too loud. He’s got the money to do whatever he wants and he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. This makes for a character that is unbalanced, unpredictable, terribly flawed, a bit of a douchebag, and all this put together results in a character who is often fun to watch..

This mercurial personality places Tony Stark in great contrast with other costumed crusaders, and Jon Favreau, Justin Theroux, and Robert Downey, Jr. are all to be commended for their parts in envisioning and creating this character, a trickster-like but irresistibly charming rogue. Superman has his core American Midwest values orienting his moral compass and keeping him on the right path. We’re always reminded of the Spider-Man creed, “With great power comes great responsibility,” based on his crippling guilt over his role in the death of his Unlce Ben, which keeps Spider-Man trying to do good. Batman is driven by horrific childhood trauma leading to obsession, and,though he maintains an image as a millionaire playboy, he passes up the booze and women, leaving a ship-ful of models to a most fortunate Alfred (no wonder he can support his master’s nighttime proclivities so well, not only is he loyal, but he enjoys quite a few perks) in The Dark Knight, so that he can pursue his obsession with crime-fighting.

Tony Stark, on the other hand, is a bona fide drunk. He’s the loosest of loose cannons, as one of the scenes in the movie clearly shows, as drunk at a party he shoots champagne bottles thrown up in the air with repulsor rays, capping off the performance with “a Gallagher” drenching his guests in watermelon. He enjoys his time with the ladies, also to the detriment of his focus and performance. Unlike other superheroes that have some kind of moral imperative driving their crime-fighting quests, Stark is just an extremely intelligent rich kid with the biggest, funnest toy ever, the Iron Man suit. When Stark addresses the senate committee all of this is apparent as he claims, like a child, that the Iron Man suit is his, and they can’t have it. And then he says you’re welcome for world peace and a nuclear deterrent, smirks at the senate committee, then smiles broadly for the cameras. All of this is done even while his motivations for superheroism, and his actual ability to perform as such, is in question.

Whether Stark deserves to wear the suit comes to the fore as one of the film’s major issues. On another level, the question raised is this: who does deserve such technology, and for what ends? While this is at its heart a superhero flick, it does bring into question issues of arms races, the development of WMDs, the MAD doctrine, and makes us wonder about what other crises might plague today’s world, if we were indeed suddenly presented with even more advanced technology.

While it does bring up these serious issues, Iron Man 2 sticks to what it does best, which is being a great superhero movie. The movie that perhaps established the modern superhero film was Sam Raimi’s first installment in the Spider-man franchise, and Raimi pushed even further with the second film. But what the first Iron Man movie really showed was the potential of the superhero movie as mass media product. It combined elements of both superhero/comic book conventions and blockbuster tastes while compromising neither. It catered to the tastes of fanboys just as much as it did to the average popcorn munching movie viewer.  It achieved this by having a good mix of story and special effects, the right amounts of action and humor, and a guiding principle that the movie be fun without pandering to the lowest common denominator. This sequel achieves that same balance perfectly, offering a something-for-everyone film that pretty much anyone can enjoy. You love superheroes? You’ll love it. Don’t care for superheroes? No problem, it’s still grand fun anyway. Like your action big? It’s here. Romance? Check. Flashy tech gadgetry? Yup. And in a movie that largely dealt with all kinds of impending doom, there was a lot of humor, humor that wasn’t cheap or slapsticky, but composed of well-staged and well-earned gags and witty quips.

Iron Man 2 is smooth and streamlined and operates like it’s been crafted to hell. But that crafting is appreciated, as the movie does take on a meta-dynamic to it--it knows when it’s telling jokes, it knows when it’s giving a nod to something, it knows when it’s toying with its genre--and that adds an additional layer for viewers to appreciate.

The bottom line: Iron Man 2 is just darn fun to watch. There’s action, romance, comedy, suspense, but the word that you’re looking for when you want to describe Iron Man 2 is fun. While it can get you thinking, and has a lot more story and character development than most blockbusters, at its heart, this is the simply kind of movie that is perfect for when we just want to go out and have fun.

Image from Wikipedia