I watched Iron Man 2 recently. I would say it was as enjoyable as the first Iron Man. Much like my critique of the first Iron Man (which I saw about a month prior to viewing Iron Man 2) I bought into a lot of the characters. The movie was entertaining, and a good sequel to the first.
Often times sequels fail to live up to the standard that the first movie established. I'm thinking of things like: Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, The Matrix Reloaded, Die Hard 2, etc. It's not that these movies are bad per se, it's that they weren't confident enough in being their own movie, so they just did the first movie over. Now, it probably seems like the difference between the approach of those three movies to being a sequel and Iron Man 2's approach is not that different. I would agree with you in part, but disagree overall.
Iron Man 2 operates under a separate paradigm from the first movie. Here Tony Stark is known the world over as Iron Man, and things are pretty hunky-dory. But, of course things are not what they seem. There is trouble brewing in Russia. Iron Man has a dangerous secret. He wants to give up, but he finds redemption, and together with the help of his friends saves the world! Isn't that the same story arc as the first movie? Yeah, more or less, but so what? This movie was just as entertaining as I was hoping it would be.
Robert Downey, Jr. was his typical solid self. Mickey Rourke did a more than sufficient job as Ivan Vanko, ie the bad guy. Although, to be honest, it was a little hard to think of Rourke as some sort of tech genius. I'm not sure who should have been cast in the alternative. Maybe Peter Stormare? Peter Stormare can be pretty menacing. I mean if you told me that guy would be getting behind a computer, and then breaking someone's neck I would say "Sure, seems believable". Seriously, why didn't they call Peter Stormare? Other than that minor issue, I thought the returning actors did a good job, and the new additions (Don Cheadle, and Scarlett Johansson) were believable in their respective roles.
Oh yeah, Sam Rockwell is in this movie. Has there ever been a more outmatched villain than Rockwell in this movie? Yes. Vernon Wells as Bennett in Commando. Rockwell was very Rockwelly, and kind of annoying, which makes me question my assessment of other Rockwell movies.
All told, the movie was just as entertaining as the first one, and advanced the overall Iron Man story nicely. I look forward to the third installment coming out in less than a month.
7/10 would watch again, probably multiples
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