Theatrical trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man
First official image from Skyfall released
Matthew Vaughn will direct the X-Men: First Class sequel
Upon its release in 2008 Iron Man was greeted with $585 million at the worldwide box office and 93% positive reviews. This meant that in order for Iron Man 2 to surpass its predecessor it would need to make $600 million+ and have at least 94% positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. That’s if you judge success like that anyway.
From the trailers and buzz making a sufficient profit doesn’t seem to be a problem, although on the review side of things it seems Iron Man 2 may have been hit by the ‘sequel curse’.
As I type there are currently 12 reviews on RT, and 3 of them are negative. This might not seem that big of a deal, although the reasons they are less than positive might be a worry.
From The Hollywood Reporter‘s Review:
Everything fun and terrific about Iron Man, a mere two years ago, has vanished with its sequel. In its place, Iron Man 2 has substituted noise, confusion, multiple villains, irrelevant stunts and misguided story lines.
All told, ‘Iron Man 2′ suffers the same fate as many a sequel. Where the first film felt buoyant and occasionally inspired in helpfully demonstrating that, done right, there’s considerable treasure to be culled even from second-tier occupants of the Marvel universe, the new pic feels more duty-bound and industrial.”
Empire gave the film a 3/5 rating, and had this to say:
Rourke and Rockwell make satisfying, complementary villains, while Downey Jr. delivers again. Shame this sequel feels inessential, over-busy and a little, well, mechanical.
On the flip side the majority of sites have given Iron Man 2 more positive reviews.
From AICN:
We may not have a lot of Comic Book awesome coming this summer, but frankly – this is all I need. I’ll be seeing this a bunch – and I can not wait to see this movie destroy my nephew’s brain tomorrow night. Seriously – his 9 year old noggin just will not be able to process how great this is.
High expectations from the first movie may leave some wanting, but there’s enough brilliance on display to leave you wanting more as well.
IGN:
Like Tony Stark himself, Iron Man 2 is a sleek and cheeky number that almost certainly trumps the fun-factor of Jon Favreau’s 2008′s surprise hit
I suppose we’ll just have to see Iron Man 2 for ourselves to judge. This is still early days yet and those negative reviews may be the only few that get published. Even if it drops to 70-80% on Rotten Tomatoes it won’t be a disaster. As along as people have a fun time and it doesn’t derail The Avengers we’re good.
