By the end of Tony Stark’s time in terrorist captivity in Iron Man, there was a wealth of interesting thematic material for the character to deal with. Most immediately, there was his mortality and legacy. There was reconciling his wealth and family history being built upon weapons sales and the carnage that ensued, typically in far away countries. And there was his own technical ingenuity and its promise to let him shape his own destiny. Unfortunately, Iron Man squandered those opportunities, at best paying these topics lip service and at worst trying to quickly remove those topics from play entirely. Thoughts exclusive to that first film can be found in a post from May ’08 (Reflections on Tony Stark and Iron Man).
That’s all a preface to my reaction to Iron Man 2, a movie which completely abandons all possibility of actually engaging with this character. Rather, Tony Stark and Robert Downey Jr. are simply unleashed without direction. There is no character arc here, not even a feigned one as in the first film. Stark, in all his self-absorption and narcissism, has become an even bigger dick in the six months since we last saw him. He’s fully embraced his role as a human weapon, arguing that he and the suit are one. Gone is even a minuscule amount of care about his business, of which he quickly hands away control. The first film at least had him say once or twice that he wanted his company to shift away from weapons to energy sources, but it’s not clear that that’s happened. Tony Stark has restarted his father’s Stark Expo – basically a World’s Fair – but the only tech we see shown off there are weaponized suits and robots. It’s more like a Tony Stark/Iron Man fan convention than an event meant to inspire and give back to the people.
Anyway, it’s not clear what Stark Enterprises is doing as business anymore, but we can be sure that it has not made any effort to mass produce the arc reactor technology to help solve the world’s energy problems. In fact, based upon the movie’s senate committee sequence and Ivan Vanko’s need to build his own arc reactor, it would seem Stark has no plans to let the technology into the hands of anyone else, neither the government nor the public. Tony is eventually forced to revisit the arc reactor tech, but only for his own health purposes. As he’s facing death, which never feels very credible, there’s some lip service about legacy and finals moments, but it culminates in some goofy shenanigans as he gets drunk and acts like dangerous asshole for what he’s calling his potentially last birthday. You’d think with the pieces in play – Tony facing his own mortality and the story returning to elements of his father’s career and legacy – that a decent story involving Tony struggling with defining a positive role for himself in the world would write itself, but instead the entire plot is even more insular than in the last one.
There’s a glimmer of hope for the movie when Stark visits Vanko in prison. The latter accuses the Stark family of being thieves and murderers, and I find myself hoping we’re going to actually delve into that legacy this time around. Unfortunately, just as quickly as Mickey Rourke’s line reading is done, so is the film’s interest in that topic. Stark doesn’t genuinely engage with his or his family’s demons, let alone conquer them. The script just trots them out once in a while, “look over here, doesn’t this element kinda give Tony Stark some depth? Now back to CGI robots clanging around the screen and glib quips by Downey Jr.” The problem with occasionally reminding us that there are interesting possibilities in Stark’s story is that it makes what we get all the more unsatisfying.
Vanko also opens up the possibility of the movie dealing with Stark’s reaction to inspiring copycats, including those who would use similar technology for evil purposes. This, like the rest of the film’s thematic opportunities, is avoided completely. There’s not even an acknowledgment that he’s in any way responsible for any part of what Vanko and Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer do in creating their own villainous machines. Stark never once even comments on the plot against him. There’s no “escalation” moment like in the finale of Batman Begins. Hell, for some inexplicable reason Congress gives Stark an award at the film’s end, even though the film’s plot proves the points senators made earlier. Suffice to say, some things in Iron Man 2 don’t even make sense on their own superficial plane of existence, let alone a deeper one. The movie simply refuses to break through the surface, instead it’s content with being a brainless popcorn flick. All flash, no bang.
I don’t believe I have read a single comic that Iron Man appears in, but it’s not very difficult to see that the character has dramatic potential. The first act of Iron Man did a fine job of revealing several intriguing opportunities with its lead character. It’s just a shame the people responsible for producing these films couldn’t care less.
