Buy Iron Man 2 (Two-Disc Special Edition)

For this review, I'm not going to get into all the technical aspects of the movie or the other things that made this movie memorable. All I'm going to talk about it the lack of action in this movie (and series in general). I felt like this was an episode of the West Wing where the President (in this case Tony Stark) is getting pulled, manipulated and exploited and in the end it comes down to he and his real friends to get him out of the dilemma. I understand that the budget for Iron Man 2 was greatly increased from the first movie, but where was that money spent? Other than the Stark Convention floor, I didn't see anything in this installment that was any grander than the first. I feel like there's nothing but juxtaposition and exposition. No huge action scenes at all. For every hour of action, there is literally one minute of action. The action finale is a jumbled mess of angles and shots that leave a lot to be desired. I can only equate the finale between Stark and Whiplash to that of a charcoal grill that gets left unattended before the meat goes on. Sure, you can put more gas on the fire to get it hot again, but its going to be a few moments of flash and then back to being orange coals. I love the dialogue in the Iron Man movies, and I believe that it is the dialogue that sets these movies apart from the rest of the comic book films that have come out to date, but the third movie HAS to up the ante or it will become a one trick pony.

Also, I had a huge issue of the writers forgoing using the "Demon in a bottle" storyline for this movie, instead they use the arc reactor in his chest to "poison" him. Iron Man had a few stand out story lines since its creation and none were more human that demon in a bottle. They really dropped the ball on that part too.

All in all, I'll still buy the blu ray on release date. I'll still praise this movie and recommend it to friends. But in ten years, when we've only got 3(4 if we're lucky) Iron Man movies to go back and view, it'll be a lot of missed opportunities in this franchise.Get more detail about Iron Man 2 (Two-Disc Special Edition).