Iron Man 2

Seen at: Carmike 10, last week, matinee

Iron Man 2 was among the better movies to come out this spring. The first installment two years ago was one of the more interesting movies of 2008, storywise and productionwise, and the second movie builds on successes of the first.

In the first installment, the hero finds power. He uses the power, and is threatened by someone jealous of it, whom the hero defeats.

The second movie is about how the hero discovers that power has a consequence, in that for power, he sacrifices love. The hero has to reconcile his power to his heart. Because this is a superhero movie, the symbolism is all literal. But that's ok.

The problem of the movie is discovering a narrative path towards endorsing the idea that Tony Stark must be CEO of his enterprise, and not Pepper Potts. The story does this in a fresh and interesting way for 2010.

There's interesting political commentary. (Spoiler) Stark resists the demand of Congress to hand over his suit, on the grounds that it is his private property. He somehow manages to hand it over to the government---in the form of benevolent Don Cheedle playing a USAF colonel. But the way Stark lets it play out, this appropriation appears to have it have been against Stark's will. We're supposed to think that this is a good thing, when Cheedle flies away in a copy of the suit. Or are we?