A fairly entertaining blockbuster.

Rating: 6/10 (15 July 2017)

This movie technically begins by depicting the squalid life of the film's villain, but it soon speeds on to the movie's primary subject - Tony Stark's insatiable ego. Stark acts like some comic book caricature of John Galt, and many of his lines could be verbatim quotes, as far as I can tell. He says lines like "Because I'm your nuclear deterrent. It's working. We're safe. America is secure. You want my property? You can't have it. But I did you a big favor." In other words, he begins the movie as a charming egotist, Shrekli if he had a soul.
The movie (and my perception of Tony Stark himself) get much better as it goes on. Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer does a solid job and manages to be even easier to hate than Robert Downey Jr. Watching either of them prance around on stage is cringe-worthy but both performances are well done.
The movie's long camera shots of various attractive women and its reverence for gee-whiz technology feels a bit overdone at times, but I guess that that is what the people making the movies thinks its audience wants that. They know better than me.
Iron Man 2 is wish fulfillment and not at its best. It is, however, not at its worst either, and it is an entertaining movie that is at its best when Tony is being bashed, or slightly worse, bashing someone else.
(I saw this on July 15, 2017)