Story
In a rundown apartment building in Moscow, Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) screams out in murderous rage after watching his father die in bed. Next we see Ivan constructing his own Iron Man suit complete with ‘power whips’. We learn that Ivan’s father was responsible for developing the plans for the original arc reactor, which were taken over by Tony Stark’s father. This enabled Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) to create the original Iron Man suit. Instead of reaping the rewards of his invention, Ivan’s father was deported back to Russia.
Six months after these scenes, we find that all is not going well for Tony Stark. He is slowly being poisoned to death by the arc reactor used to power his Iron Man suit. Meanwhile the US government is pressuring him to hand over his suit to the military. The military decides to develop its own suit, so it teams up with Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), an industrialist who wants to destroy Stark. Then Ivan Vanko re-enters the picture as ‘Whiplash’. He attacks Stark during the French Grand Prix, but is defeated and imprisoned.
Unsuccessful in his attempts to create an Iron Man suit, Hammer orchestrates Vanko’s escape from prison. Hammer believes Vanko will help him make the suit, but Ivan has his own agenda. Rather than building an Iron Man suit, he builds an army of Iron Man clones.
In the struggles that follow, Stark relies on both new and old alliances, including Lt Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), SHIELD agents Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Natasha Romanaff (Natalie Rushman), and the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson).
Themes
Superheroes; the weapons industry
Violence
Iron Man 2 contains sequences of intense, stylised action violence, but there is minimal blood and gore. For example:
Sexual references
Iron Man 2 contains several covert sexual references and innuendoes. For example:
- When Stark leaves a hotel, he finds a young attractive woman sitting in his car. Stark asks, ‘Does she come with the car? ... I certainly hope so’.
- A man makes a comment to Stark about expensive sexual harassment law cases.
- A man is talking about an attractive young reporter who is writing a piece on Tony Stark. The man says, ‘She did quite a spread on Tony’.
- A man says, ‘Maybe I’ll even get laid’.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
Iron Man 2 contains some use of substances. For example:
- People at parties drink wine and champagne.
- Vanko swigs vodka straight from the bottle.
- Stark sips a martini and then sculls the drink.
- At his own birthday party, Stark behaves in an extremely drunk way while wearing his Iron Man suit. He staggers around, falls over and wees in his suit. His behaviour then becomes aggressive and dangerous, resulting in a fight with his best friend.
- Stark is injected in the side of his neck with the drug lithium dioxide.
- Vanko is referred to as ‘vodka enraged’.
Nudity and sexual activity
Iron Man 2 contains some partial nudity and sexual activity. For example:
- A group of women wearing very short, tight shorts and low-cut bikini-style tops perform a sexy dance.
- A woman undresses in the back of a car and reveals sexy black lingerie. The driver tries to watch her in the car’s rear view mirror.
- Tony Stark kisses a woman passionately on the lips and tells her he loves her.
Product placement
None of concern
Coarse language
Iron Man 2 contains some infrequent low-level coarse language.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Iron Man 2 is the sequel to Iron Man, a superhero action adventure based on Marvel comics characters. The movie targets an adolescent male audience. Despite some good performances, the movie falls short of providing stimulating grown-up entertainment. At just over two hours in length, it’s also a little longer than needed.
The main message from this movie is that technology should be used for the greater good of humanity rather than for individual personal gain.
Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include self-sacrifice. Tony Stark as Iron Man makes numerous sacrifices, including risking his life to save others and humanity in general. Several of Stark’s close friends also make similar sacrifices to benefit Stark and others.