Brings back the fun but lacks the substance of the original

Rating: 7/10 (25 May 2010)

The first Iron Man was a great film. The action was exciting, the interaction between the characters was great and Robert Downey Jnr was fantastic as Iron Man. The same can be said here but the film has something that stops it from being as good as the original. Its like they made the perfect sequel but it wasn't long enough so they filled it up with lots of unnecessary scenes that slow the film down and edited out Mickey Rouke's scenes.
That said there is a lot to like here. Fans of the original will enjoy this but from what I've heard the producers rushed the director to make this in two years instead of three, which is a shame. Mickey Rouke does a great performance as Whiplash and when he has a chance to show it, he is ruthless. He kills people but we only get to see the blood on his hands from after the fight leaving it for us to imagine the actual fight itself. He is the best thing about this film and its a shame that he has such a limited screen time as he is involved in the best action scene of the film set in Monaco.
Other supporting cast members include Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer who is good in places but I felt that they could have given him more to do because it is clear that he is immersed in his role completely. Don Cheadle takes over the role of Rhodes and does a good job as well. Scarlett Johansson has some great fight scenes but again they could have used her more as well. Gwyneth Paltrow gives another good performance but sadly she was in many of the scenes that could have been edited down.
Another problem for some people is the advertising of the up-coming Avengers film. This is more time that could have been spent developing the villains of the film. There are also a lot of reference to it such as Captain America's shield. There is also a fight scene in Tony's house that was silly and you were not sure who you were supposed to be supporting and also do we really need to see Tony drunk, shooting empty bottles of champagne at a party? Tony is meant to be different to other superheroes but there are scenes like this make him less likable.
However as mentioned earlier there is a lot to like and it comes towards the end of the film. The final action sequence is enjoyable (even though hundreds of people would have died) and had everything you would expect to see in an Iron Man film. There is also a lot of funny dialogue between characters, which keeps this enjoyable. I only hope that the next one fixes the problems from this and features what everyone loved from the first.