Downey is happy to share attention with any actor possessing the nerve and verve to try and keep up with him. He has the rare and marvelous capacity to surprise himself, which is one reason, even in a noisy dud like “Sherlock Holmes,” you can’t stop watching him.īut though Tony is a narcissist he admits as much when a psychological profile tells him so Mr. As fast as his body and mouth might move, his brain is even quicker. Downey, his restless features keeping Stark’s lounge-lizard facial hair in a state of perpetual animation, has a way of turning action-hero duty into a form of intellectual comedy. flight simulations may have cost a lot of money, but more imagination has been invested in the film’s sleek and shiny look and, above all, in its jittery, loquacious and eccentric population of geniuses, frauds, playboys and bad guys.Ī scene from “Iron Man 2.” Credit. It’s not that the action sequences are badly executed they just aren’t very interesting.
Favreau again plays Iron Man’s nebbishy gopher and they have in effect turned this movie over to its game and talented cast. Theroux are both accomplished actors in “Iron Man 2” Mr.
“Iron Man 2,” directed by Jon Favreau from a screenplay by Justin Theroux, doesn’t achieve the emotional complexity of “Spider-Man 2” or the operatic grandeur of “The Dark Knight,” but it does try something a little bit new and perhaps, given the solemnity that has overtaken so much comic-book-based filmed entertainment, a little bit risky. Having introduced its physically and intellectually gifted, emotionally tormented protagonist in both his regular and alter egos, a comic book franchise will typically set out, in the second installment, in search of new villains, bigger suits, brighter gadgets and tendrils of plot that can blossom in subsequent sequels.īut sometimes for instance in the recent Spider-Man, X-Men and Batman cycles the second time is a charm, as filmmakers and actors use the reasonable certainty of financial success to take chances and explore odd corners of their archetypal, juvenile stories. “Iron Man 2,” the first superhero sequel of the summer, fulfills the basic requirements of the genre, which can be summed up as more of the same, with emphasis on more.