Film Review - Iron Man 2 (2010)

Iron Man 2 is the continuation of the surprise hit of 2008: Iron Man 1, the story this time concerns the US Government pressuring Stark to hand over the Iron Man weapon, but little does he know that his decision of revealing his identity at the end of Iron Man 1 is starting to have dire consequences.

Now, to get this all out of the way I was sceptical about seeing this film, as the first trailer was released after seeing James Cameron's Avatar, and while I felt that it had the tone of Iron Man 1, I wasn't sure that the film as a whole would be good, especially since I had enjoyed the first so much, this was confirmed somewhat by the casting of Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson, both of whom I haven't been all that enthusiastic for in recent years, but eventually I put it aside and decided that I really did want to see this film.

But was that enough, well it comes in a good news/bad news kind of way, the good news is that Downey is back on form after failing to impress me in Tropic Thunder and Sherlock Holmes, his opening speech made me think "please let him host the Oscars" and laughing like a hyena at the same time, on top of that the chemistry between Downey and Gwyneth Paltrow is back, Johansson is a nice surprise after being hit and miss since Lost in Translation, I loved hearing Shoot to Thrill by AC/DC in the cinema and the film's flying scenes and action are very nicely handled.

Now comes the bad news, and that is the movie as a whole doesn't come together in the same satisfying way that the first film did, the film juggles a lot of characters old and new and doesn't succeed mainly because I think the film's script was rushed to meet the 2 year deadline, the character played by Rourke wasn't a good villain as all he did was mumble his lines in a cheesy Russian accent, the character of the rival businessman played by Sam Rockwell was literally channeling Michael Biehn and Don Cheadle was not a good replacement, as I couldn't help but think of what Terrence Howard would have done had he stayed on to reprise his role from the first film.

Overall, this film to me comes across as a rushed production, and it's a shame as I loved the first Iron Man film, now I know that some of you will see this regardless of what is said in this review but I cannot say that this film delivered as the small positives are outweighed by the large negatives listed above, so I have to give this a 2 and a half out of 5.