Sequel, though not as bad as it could have been

Rating: Null/10 (24 August 2013)

My least favourite Iron Man film, and for a good reason. Whereas the first Iron Man film was a great origins film, this film had the burden of answering the question "then what?". And it drops the ball, completely.
Well, okay, perhaps that's not exactly fair. It's not a bad film, no sir. For one, the villain (played by Mickey Rourke) is very good. Rourke is a great actor, though he has a tendency to always play the exact some role of a grizzly badass, and that doesn't change, but he always throws in a little variety to keep it interesting. Ivan Vanko in this film always has this look on his face, like he's internally grinning at you, because you fail to impress him. A man always in charge, even while in chains, frighteningly brilliant and at times even unstoppable. In short, an excellent villain.
Furthermore, Robert Downey Jr. is still an amazing Tony Stark. His few opening scenes are pure gold, especially the hearing, and when he acts out the vulnerability of the character, I believe it. The problem here isn't the acting, it's the writing. I've enjoyed the fact that Tony Stark always fights villains that he has created himself. Likewise in this case, which is fine, but otherwise they took a huge step backwards with the character of Tony. And this is a common sequel mistake where the main character seems to have learned nothing from the events of the first film. Tony Stark in this film seems to recess back to that egoistical jerk that we saw at the beginning of the first film. Granted, they at least try to justify it by pointing out that Tony is the sort of man to do things like that, but it still feels wrong somehow. We expected more from you, Tony.
And it doesn't help that the film tries to force in a subplot about Tony's dead father and all the usual clichés that go along with that storyline. It's tedious, it's boring, it's not needed and the film really should have focused on the villain and the newly-found responsibilities of being a superhero maintaining world peace. Not this unconvincing emotional busywork.
This film has its ups and downs. I love the action, the visuals and the music. I like the villain very much and I like the returning actors. But the story just isn't that strong and the film lacks focus. If you're a fan of the superhero genre and you liked the first film, you're not going to hate this one. It's not great, like the original, but it's decent.