Namaste, Iron-Boys and Iron-Girls alike. Welcome to the 3rd instalment of my MCU reviews.

I’m sure I’m gonna get a lotta people mad for liking this movie, cuz I seem to be in that one minority that somehow came about over the stupidest of reasons. But, c’mon, people, I’ve survived the harshness of the craziest of fanboys when it came to Transformers and Ninja Turtles, and those are farts in a hurricane compared to the Sonic group. A lot of those stupid complaints, I’m gonna be covering and explaining why those are such exaggerations. Time to get suited up for:

IRON-MAN 2

The movie starts just right where the last one left off, right up to where Tony reveals himself as Iron-Man, which I still think that was a big mistake. And that news coverage is being televised all around the world, including Moscow, Russia. Seeing this news is a dying, bedridden former soviet physicist Anton Vanko; which I’m glad he made a cameo in one episode of Agent Carter.
There we meet Anton’s son, Ivan, played by the awesome Mickey Rourke, also a physicist, and tattooed up all to hell, who comes to his father’s side, just before he passes away before telling him that all the fame that Tony has should’ve rightfully belonged to Ivan.
And so, looking up old blueprints given to him by his father, Ivan sets out to make himself his own miniature Arch Reactor.
6 months have passed since Tony’s reveal to the world as Iron-Man, and apparently no interruptions of the peace. Tony is there for the opening ceremonies for the Stark Expo in Queens, New York, started by his father way back in the 70s. This is where we see his new Mark 4 suit.

STAN LEE CAMEO: We see him as Larry King! XD

Also another cameo, Olivia Munn from ‘Attack of the Show’ way back in the day.

We see Tony checking his blood for toxicity levels but we don’t know why yet. On his way out, Tony gets a little DC court summons.
During this meeting, he’s being demanded by Senator Sterns to turn over his suits, feeling that he can’t protect America. Now seeing this scene after just seeing Captain America: Winter Soldier makes more sense to me personally, and I’ll explain why when we get to that.
Tony’s being defended by his best buddy, Rhodey, now played by Don Cheadle, saying that he has done more good than hard. This is also where we meet Justin Hammer, played by Sam Rockwell, a long-time rival of Tony and weapons contractor, whose in favor of Tony handing over his Iron-Man suits.
Rhodey tells the senate that other countries are indeed making their own copies of the suit. Being the clever man that he is, Tony hacks their screens and shows them all the manned suits that said other countries have been attempting to make and failed miserably… including Hammer! Tony guarantees that all those countries are well-behind in this tech and are no grave immediate threats… especially Hammer. This gets Tony off the hook and the meeting’s adjourned, though Sterns ain’t too happy… how can he be? His face looks like he shot himself up with tons of Botox. Tony states that the suit and him are ONE, and they can’t have it. That’s the same thing he says about the Arch Reactor in Avengers. Iron-Man 3 basically betrays all those points that were built up and expounded upon for the 1st two movies… but I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
Stark returns to his home in Malibu, and we see that he has to change out a palladium chip in his chest piece; learning that the device that’s supposed to be keeping him alive is killing him, and the continued use of the Iron-Man suit is accelerating his condition.

Gee, it sure would be a swell time to remove all that shrapnel outta ya, Tony. Nah. Too easy a solution.

In comes Pepper, telling him that the expo is a waste of his time and that he should be running HIS company. Effective immediately, Tony hands the company over to her so she can run it. Pepper doesn’t know what to say about this.
Meanwhile back in Moscow, Ivan’s got friends in high places , who gives the guy a passport with a fake ID and info about where Tony’s gonna be… at a Grand Prix in Monaco.
Back with Stark, he’s training with Happy in boxing, when Pepper comes in with a new assistant. Here’s where we meet Natalie Rushman, played by the lovely Scarlet Johansson (hint hint ;3) and she proves she’s more than just a pretty face when Happy taunts her while doing a little sparring session. Happy, thank your lucky stars you’re not a Chitauri.
We’re now in Monaco where Tony, Happy and Pepper are here to see the Grand Prix, since he’s sponsoring a racer. In comes Hammer again, just schmoozing, and while talking to a Vanity Fair reporter, Tony fires off at the reporter that Hammer’s military contract was revoked since the Senate saw his little blunder; taunting Hammer to invent something that works for the Expo.
Tony sees his blood toxicity levels are higher than when he last checked back at home, and he thought… why not, so he races instead of the sponsored racer. Actually that racer was lucky, for Ivan’s there as one of the pit crew, and he’s getting himself ready for action.
The race is underway, but in comes Ivan with his newly-made energy-whips, powered by his mini arch-reactor. Ivan, now Whiplash, makes hell break loose on the track, trying to kill Tony.
Pepper and Happy race to help him to give him a really peculiar case.
Hammer and thousands of people see Tony fight Ivan, when he puts on that ‘case’… his Mark 5 suit. (Very fitting name-wise, since he was just racing. Go Speed Racer, Goooooooooo!)
Ivan’s tough, but Tony gets the upper hand and beats him, ripping out his arc-reactor. Tony looks at the arch-reactor; needs to know how Ivan got hold of this. Hammer, seeing the whole thing, smiles, cooking up a plan.
Tony visits Ivan in prison, where Ivan expounds that he comes from a family of thieves and butchers, that no matter what good he achieves, all the lives that were destroyed by the Stark name and weaponry will never go away. Ivan tells Tony that his father is who originally made the arch-reactor, and tells him his defeat wasn’t a total loss. Saying, “if you can make God bleed, everyone will stop believing and the sharks will come after you.”
And, that’s what happens; soon as Tony comes home from Malibu, after Ivan tells him that palladium in the chest is a painful way to die, newscasters come pouring in, including Sterns, saying that Tony’s tech is being made elsewhere and it works, doubting that he can protect anyone. (I’ll explain what Sterns says in my Cap America: Winter Soldier review) All the while, Tony’s trying to tell Pepper he’s dying but he can’t.
Rhodey tells Tony that people are gonna take his suits away if he doesn’t shape up, and that’s when he sees the condition Tony’s in, but Tony neglects to tell his best friend he’s dying. Rhodey tells Tony that he doesn’t have to go through what he’s going through alone. But Tony dejects him, saying this is something he has to do.
Prior to that, Tony learns about Ivan Vanko, a physicist who sold weapons-grade plutonium on and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Tony also learns of Anton, who defected to the US in ’63, then was accused of espionage and deported in ’67.
Back in Monaco, Ivan’s partners help his escape attempt in a very clever way. Even if Ivan did kill Tony, who’s to say he wasn’t gonna pull off this escape here, too? But, Ivan gets captured and taken back to Queens to meet Justin Hammer, who offers him a deal to make armors like Tony’s, to kill his ‘legacy.’ Ivan accepts the offer.
OK, now people continue on to accuse Ivan and Hammer of having no motivations at all to go after Tony. I’ll explain Ivan in a bit, but Hammer? C’mon! Tony embarrassed him in front of an entire Senate, and got his military contract revoked. Don’t you think you’d be a wee bit pissed off, too?
It’s Tony’s birthday, and Tony is down, seeing his toxicity levels are higher. Natalie comes in, saying his guest are waiting and he asks her what would she do if this was the last birthday she ever celebrated. She says she’d make the most out of it. So, that’s what Tony does… by partying out with the people in his suit.
OK, this is another thing that people love to complain about, that Tony’s behavior doesn’t make sense in this particular scene. 1) He’s dying. 2) Knows he’s dying. 3) Wants to make the most outta what life he has left in him. I’d be doing the same damn thing. Even rich people are prone to depression when they find out they’re gonna die, and he’s got the cool toys, and wants to show them off, fitting his personality, and this behavior is normal, and I ain’t know psychiatrist.
Rhodey comes in and sees what he’s doing; he’s drunk, shooting things with his suit. He could seriously hurt someone if he doesn’t stop, so Rhodey arms himself with the Mark 2 suit, and tries to stop him.
Now about this part, where Rhodey dons a suit, me and others think that Tony may have planned that so he could take over as Iron-Man when he dies, hence why we see the suits with individual power sources. I think, that wasn’t all that clear; maybe a deleted scene. Think back to the first movie when he tried to bring Rhodes in on it from the start but Rhodes thought Stark's head wasn't in the right place. Also towards the end of the movie when Rhodes looked at the armor and said "next time baby." Moving forward to the second movie we can assume that Rhodes most likely have worn that suit a few times. It’s been 6 months, and a whole lotta things can happen during that time. It’s been 6 months since I got season 2 of Legend of Korra, then the last two, and I haven’t gotten a chance to see them all yet.
Anyhoo, Rhodey challenges him, telling him to take off the suit, challenging him since Tony went against his wishes, and after he defended him so many times, yeah, I’d be pissed off with him, too. the fight between Tony and Rhodey goes as well as well as you’d think; their combined repulsors cancel each other out. (plot point) Rhodey flies off with Tony’s suit, and flies off to his air force base where they can arm it better on orders from the higher ups.
Meanwhile, Tony’s chilling in the donut of Randy’s Donut shop, when Nick Fury comes in.
Tony’s talking with Fury, all alone in the donut shop since Fury secured it, saying he doesn’t want to join his ‘super-secret boyband’, reminiscence of the end credit scene of the last film. Natalie comes in… revealing herself as a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, Agent Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow. They give him a medicine that abates Tony’s symptoms, knowing of his illness, telling him that he has work to do.
Meanwhile, Hammer’s got Ivan working on his own version of his suits, but Ivan tells him that he’s making Drones so they won’t make mistakes. Hammer’s getting a little shifty of this decision, and also Ivan’s working on his own schemes.
Back at the ruined house of Tony, Fury tells him that his arch reactor is based off of unfinished tech his father was making, telling him that Howard Stark knew his son could pull it off. Tony resented his father, saying that he never told him he loved him. Fury knew Howard better than his son did, saying he was one of the founding members of S.H.I.E.L.D., and we all know who the other founding member is. ;3
Tony is left with Agent Coulson so he can look at old archival footage of his father.
This is another major complaint that made people so delusional and over exaggerate this plot point in so many reviews that made people scratch their heads, myself included; saying that this movie was all just a commercial for the Avengers. Even if that was the case, they said it since 2006 they were building it up to. But this whole friggin’ argument that this movie’s a commercial is and always will be stupid, the Avengers thing was prevalent for like 10 minutes, not even! It really wasn’t/isn’t a commercial! And the argument holds no water when you watch it as many times as I have. We learn that Tony hated his father, but then learns about him that he was part of S.H.I.E.L.D., one of the founding members, and when he looks through the footage and his old notes, at the end page, we see a drawing of a cube in there (the Tesseract), which we learn more of in the first Cap movie and in Agent Carter. But what he learns is what the whole plot of the film was about, him trying to save his own life. And if people still try to argue this at me, I got nothing but pity for ya.
So, when Tony learns his father hid a diagram of this new ‘element’ that he was working on in a diaroma model of the Stark Expo of ’74, said he made this all for Tony so he can make it when the tech was advanced enough; part of his life-long dream that he never got a chance to make since he died and all. So Howard wanted to tell him this personally, but couldn’t, and he says that he’s always loved him. Now people have argued that Howard shoulda said. “Hey, son, I hid a diagram in a model you almost wrecked, check it out.” Why would he do that when it's apparent that the people at S.H.I.E.L.D. had seen the video before Tony? Why would he leave such an open clue to risk it falling into the wrong hands? Maybe Howard was a paranoid person, like Howard Hughes, and didn't trust anyone with the new element and planned to pass the knowledge on to Tony when he was older. Of course Hydra killed him before he could do that. (more on that in Winter Soldier) Hell, we see him working on the Tesseract, and the tech that came from it before getting it, and was once wielded by the Red Skull, would you risk this knowledge falling in the wrong hands? Howard knew what he was doing, knew how bright his son was, so the rest is history.
And so, Tony heads over to Stark Industries, where Pepper is trying to cope with her new position as CEO, but is getting as much heat as Tony’s getting and she tells him that she’s trying to put out the fires that he started; leaving the way he did at the party. Tony once again tries to tell her he’s dying but she wants no part of him and tells him to leave.
Tony sees the layout model and takes back home to figure out and rediscover a new element.
Now, I admit I can be a dumbass when it comes to science, but if they can make it plausible, then sure. This is from an IMDB user, but it rings true to me, “What he invented was a new MOLECULE. A molecule is made up of two or more atoms and is typically stable. The different buildings in the layout each represented the atomic structure of the atoms (elements) that made up this new molecule.”
I do see how people get confused by this. Thoughts on this? So, Tony figures it out, but JARVIS says it’ll be hard to synthesize.
Well, Tony managed to make a reactor outta scraps in a cave, surely he can make a collider, or a particle accelerator, or what he did with prisms. The set-up was a little farfetched, but I think Tony would’ve figured out how not to get irradiated. Thoughts?
Anyway, Coulson comes in, saying he’s been reassigned to New Mexico for something after Tony asks him to help balance a pipe using a mangled up shield… Cap’s shield, of course it’s not, it was probably a set decoration piece, or what have you.
Tony fires up his machine and successfully makes the new power source for his new chest piece.
Meanwhile, while Hammer’s playing golf with Sterns, he calls Ivan, saying he wants to show the new drones to him, but Ivan says they’re not going to be ready. Hammer returns, pissed, threatens to kill Ivan if he doesn’t deliver after the Expo. Prior to that, Hammer comes in and offers weapons to upgrade and reformat the Mark 2 suit that Rhodey acquired.
OK, how many bloopers do you think Sam Rockwell had trying to say the word ‘cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX) burst’ while talking about the ex-wife missile?
Hammer left Ivan with two of his guards, but Ivan dispatches them quickly, and calls Tony saying he’s going to do something terrible to the people at the Expo in 40 minutes, pretty much letting us know that his motive is revenge for what Stark’s father did to his father.
So, we know what Ivan’s motivation is, and Fury told us that Anton was gonna use the Arch Reactor to get rich, and Howard had him deported, then the Russians shipped him off to Siberia when he couldn’t deliver. So Ivan was brought up getting revenge for his father. Clichéd? Yes, but it was still interesting of a story. Now Rouke shares his dislike for the film, saying he worked hard for this. Boo frickin’ hoo, dude! There are so many projects that don’t get a chance to see the light of day. Yeah, there have been films their stars disliked: http://www.imdb.com/poll/Zn3MMKvrA9Y/?ref_=bd_rh, but we take it with a grain of salt, my friend. And your character was FAR better than Killian in Iron-Man 3.
Anyhoo, Tony’s gotta stop Ivan, so he puts his new chest piece in, feeling the power!
The Stark Expo’s in full swing, and Hammer shows off his new Hammer Drones, and you gotta admit, those drones were pretty aweosme, but not as awesome as when Rhodey shows up, wearing his new ‘War Machine’ suit! ^^ *Squees!* Believe it or not, War Machine was what got me into Iron-Man in the first place. ^^
Tony shows up, with his newly-made Mark 6 suit, telling Rhodey that Ivan’s alive and in tracing the call where Ivan called him from, confronts Hammer to where Ivan is.
Ivan boots up his system, slaving Rhodey’s suit and the Hammer Drones and attacks Tony. Tony flies off, giving chase, trying to fend off them and keep the civilians outta harm’s way ina really cool chase.
Natasha gets where Ivan’s hiding while almost breaking his arm, and she and Happy go to his facility.
We see Black Widow in action, and man she’s a badass! Happy also fights, and he’s awesome too. ^^ But Ivan’s flown the coop already. Widow disables the system in Rhodey’s suit as Tony has him pinned in a glass dome, looking like scenery of Japan.
Rhodey comes too, and apologizes to Tony, and vice-versa. More Hammer Drones come in, and the two kick ass together, dropping them like flies, but in comes Ivan with his own suit and takes the two on. Ivan’s really tough with the suit, and can’t come at him long distance. He has both on the ropes and they decide to pull off a last-ditch effort, combining their repulsor blasts together like before and manage to critically injure Ivan. But Ivan has one last trump of his own, rigging his suit and the drones to blow. They escape, but Tony sees that Pepper’s around one of them and saves her right when it blows.
Tony and Pepper land on a roof. Pepper’s had enough and resigns her position, shows how worried she was for Tony, even after finally learning that he was dying. But they show each other love, Rhodey sees this, and tells him he’s holding onto the suit.
Next day, Tony’s with Fury about his assessment for the Avenger’s initiative, telling him he’s recommended… and yet not recommended due to what went down in his house. Fury tells him he’ll be a consultant for now. Tony asks Fury to represent him and Rhodey for Sterns as treasurers as they’re given medals.

That was Iron-Man 2, and I’ll tell you this straight out, I don’t care how many complaints I’ll get, but I love this movie more than the first. I just loved the theme of this movie, how it was about Tony finding out his legacy, much like the speech he gave in the beginning about legacy his father started with the expo. Ivan and Hammer were interesting villains and characters, we get to see Tony and Rhodey become better characters. Sure, Pepper was basically arguing with Tony in almost every scene, but with good reason. It just had plots and elements I greatly enjoyed more than the first film. It’s the best of the trilogy to me personally. Agree to disagree all you want, but this doesn’t deserve all the hate it gets. I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this, I just don’t get the hate some people give it. And at the same time, I don’t get how those same people give the praise that Iron-Man 3 still gets.

I’ve tried to comprehend that for 2 years now, but I just don’t get it. Jon couldn’t make the Iron-Man sequel he wanted. What the hell was your original idea, dude?! Marvel Studios asked you to add that one little element, which opened the door and set a course for future instalments for the MCU which had been totally awesome! And I’m free to say this since Jon turned down directing Iron-Man 3, which was a major mistake. After seeing 3, I don't wanna hear your complaints. I can watch it again and again no matter what day it is.

This movie had heart – and I deemed it worthy of getting it on DVD.

After credit scene: Coulson arrives in New Mexico where he sees people in a massive crater, but it wasn’t by no meteor. Embedded in the epicenter of the crater is…Mjølnir… Thor’s Hammer!

Tune in for my Thor review.

Till next time, live the dream and draw it.

Thanks for your time.