If Terrence Howard is watching the just-released trailer for “Iron Man 2” he’s probably seething with envy.
Sure, some of it seems, generic, predictable, a little too cocky and what you’d expect from a sequel to this surprisingly good summer tent pole, but we have to admit, the moment that shows Don Cheadle as War Machine (captured above in this still), is pretty fucking cool. Or at least, it tends to bring out the little boy in us (and obviously that’s generally not our thing).
Is “Iron Man 2” which stars Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson and Cheadle on top of Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow from the original film, going to suffer from the “Spider-Man 3” syndrome: i.e., too many villains and characters and not enough story? “Written” by Justin Theroux and Jon Favreu (heavy sketches with lots of improvising) is the script — that wasn’t even finished in the first place, and tended to unnerve actors like Jeff Bridges on ‘IM1‘ — at least in place enough to allow the actors to freestyle on set in the same successful manner?
RDJ definitely looks and sounds like he’s riffing the entire time in the trailer, but hopefully they’re keeping it in check, because the fine balance was exactly what made “Iron Man” not feel tossed off. Either way, we’ll find out soon. “Iron Man 2” hits theaters May 7, 2010. We think this looks… fine, good enough. It’s not dazzling, but it looks fun. All we’re asking for is a semi-intelligible and entertaining work of mainstream pop cinema. We’re not asking the world. You can see the entire thing over at Apple and an embed we’ll surely pop up any second. Ah, here it is.