Director -Jon Favreau
Staring – Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlet Johansson, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, Samuel L Jackson.
In Russia Ivan Vanko (Rourke) is watching Tony Stark announce that he is Iron man and decides to make a similar arc reactor and suit.
Stark becomes very famous appearing as Iron Man regularly but refuses to government pressure to sell his designs and restarts the Stark Expo event which his father formerly ran showcasing inventions from across the world.
Stark discovers that the palladium core in the arc reactor that is keeping him alive and powers his armour is slowly poisoning him. He keeps this a secret from his friends Pepper Potts, James Rhodes, Happy Hogan and his new PA Natalie Rushman and becomes increasingly reckless. He enters a special Monaco Grand Prix but Vanko attacks him using his newly created suit with eclectic whips as “Whiplash”. Vanko is put in jail, but Starks rival Justin Hammer helps Vanko escapes and by making everyone believe that Vanko died.
Stark believes he is having his final birthday and gets drunk as Iron Man. Rhodes puts on an old Iron Man suit to try to restrain him and then takes the old suit to the US Air Force.
Nick Fury (SHIELD’s director) meets with Stark and explains that Natalie Rushman is an undercover agent Natasha Romanoff and that Starks father was a SHEILD founder who became an enemy of Vanko’s father. Stark goes through his father’s stuff and discovers a design for a new element for the arc reactor and starts to make it.
Stark discovers Vanko is alive and starts to successfully use his new reactor. He goes to the Expo and sees that Hammer and Vako have been making unmanned armoured drones which are led by Rhodes in the old Iron Man suit with extra weapons. Vanko starts to remotely control Rhodes and the drones to attack Stark. Hogan and Romanoff manage to get remote control back and Vanko is defeated and Stark and Potts get together. At a debriefing Fury tells stark that due to his personality he will be used as a consultant rather than a full member of SHEILD.
There is a post credits sequence where a shield agent, Phil Coulson reports back on the discovery of a large hammer at the bottom of a crater in a desert in New Mexico.
Extras – Directors Commentary
7/10