Could not live up to its predecessor

Rating: 6/10 (3 June 2010)

The first one was a revelation! i thought it would be hard to see a comic book adaptation which would be a class apart, until Dark Knight and Iron Man changed that perception, Batman Begins was great but more of a build up to the great sequel! I certainly hoped so for the Iron Man franchise too.Guess that was not to be!I don't want to brush away this installment as unwatchable or anything like that but hey this one gets nowhere close to Iron Man 1. well being a comic-book junkie myself, i feel this movie as a stand alone is good enough maybe but as compared to its predecessor it does not do justice! What went wrong then?!! well the movie is good, maybe even great at some parts but the sum of it isn't. I think Mr.Favreau took too many things and tried to stuff all of it into one movie, nice touch in adding Nick Fury and references to other characters from parallel Marvel universes(Thor,Cap. America) but i think overall the movie was too Superhero studded for its own good. Robert Downey jr. is great as usual but the script makes him look silly at times!!( He seems carried away by the tongue in cheek side too often) There was way too much emphasis on the comic element of his character than i deem preferable in Iron Man or Tony Stark for that matter. Poor Gwyneth Paltrow has to be content playing just Stark's arm candy yet again! Scarlett Johansson looks hot in her leather tights as Natasha Rumanoff but her character is very vaguely fleshed out! As for the War Machine character, it was such a huge letdown i don't know where to begin. Firstly why on earth would they replace Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle!!! well i know Howard cant raise a candle to Cheadle in the acting department... but hey this is an action adventure we're talking about, and Howard looked good in Iron Man!I mean Don Cheadle as an action hero?? i doubt if there are many takers for that! I read somewhere that even Howard doesn't have a clue what happened?!!And the way the guy just steps into the Cybernetic guided armor-suit and flies off!! where the hell did he get trained for that, i guess in the Army?!! Jarvis would only respond to Stark I would have thought!! Coming to Mickey Rourke, well ,the guy kicks ass alright but then we miss Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stane here! Being a Sam Rockwell fan i just explained his uninspiring act to myself by guessing he needed the money!! I read a review titled Clash-Bang-Boom! well that's all there is to this movie, which of course it does well..... but it's all style without substance!!I am being liberal in rating it 6 stars because i just adore the franchise...i was this close to giving it a 5/10.(well what do i know, i am just one of the audience!!)I pray they don't mess up the third one.