For millions of Marvel fans, Iron Man 2 is a movie that became significant only after watching Avengers: Endgame. Iron Man 2, one can say, is an underrated movie that can only be appreciated in hindsight. 10 years ago, Iron Man 2 was released on the big screen. A much-awaited sequel of a much-loved first Marvel movie Iron Man - this one failed to impress the audience as much as its prequel did.
But in 2020, after watching Avengers: Endgame, one can surely look at Iron Man 2 in hindsight, and finally appreciate the highly underrated offering from MCU. Of course, the action sequences in Iron Man 2 are flimsy, and there's not much going on in the movie....unless you pay good attention. Once you begin noticing the minute details of the film, you have an epiphany...Iron Man 2 actually kickstarted the MCU, it began the journey of a man named Tony Stark, and it paved the way for the final showdown of the Avengers vs Thanos.
Tony Stark grew up in the shadow of Howard Stark. He feared his father, avoided much interaction with him, and even restrained himself from getting too close to him - because he thought that his father never loved him, or even liked him.
The reluctance of pouring his heart out in front of Howard Stark kept Tony locked in a shell of guilt, despise and regret. Until he watched his father's old recordings provided to him by Nick Fury. In one of these recordings, Howard Stark sheds away his strict, rigid, fearsome persona and reveals the soft-hearted father hidden behind it. Howard Stark leaves a video recording for Tony Stark, finally unraveling his true love for his son:
"Tony, you are too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on film for you, and someday you'll realize that it represents a whole lot more than just people's inventions. It represents my life's work. This is the key to the future. I'm limited by the technology of my time, but one day, you'll figure this out. And when you do, you'll change the world. What is, and always will be, my greatest creation, is you."
Iron Man 2 introduces the audience to Natasha Romanoff, also known as Black Widow, who works as a secret agent for S.H.I.E.L.D.
If it wasn't for Black Widow's insane fighting skills, amazing intellect, and unsuspecting demeanor - Tony Stark would have probably lost the battle against Ivan Vanko.
In Iron Man 2, Black Widow shows the audience just what she's made of - and her introduction in this movie is the beginning of her life-long association with Tony Stark as well as the rest of the Avengers.
With her own solo movie hitting the cinemas in November 2020, Black Widow is surely the second-best thing that happened in Iron Man 2. The best thing that Iron Man 2 offered the audience was a chance to see the fragile and fallible Tony Stark hiding behind the unbreakable, undefeated Iron Man suit.
At the start of the movie, the audience is made aware of the fact that Tony Stark's arc reactor is slowly poisoning him - and at the moment, there's no way to stop it. So, the movie begins with Tony Stark facing his mortality - something that he continues to face and fight until the end in Avengers: Endgame.
The movie separates the human from the superhero - and shows us that Tony Stark is powerful not because of his Iron Man suits, but because he is a fallible man, who has seen the depths of hell and has emerged out it successfully.
But of course, one can only observe this while revisiting Iron Man 2 after the tear-jerking climax of MCU's Endgame. In essence, Iron Man 2 might have failed to show us a stereotypical, action-packed superhero flick - but it succeeded in doing one thing - it showed us the man inside the powerful tech-filled suit, and made us watch the beginnings of a superhero whose power comes from within.
Now, don't we all love Iron Man 2 after this?
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