Misses the Mark

Rating: 5/10 (23 June 2014)

Iron Man ranks as one of the best movies made about a Marvel superhero to date. It was going to be a difficult task following that up, no matter what, but a great sequel could have been made had they just taken the time to develop it. But no, money talks, so they rushed this sequel into production and what results is probably the worst of the Marvel shared universe films. That isn't to say it's not worth watching. It still has some good points and Robert Downey, Jr. is most of them. But it has more bad ones. It suffers from the same thing so many superhero movie sequels do. It feels like it needs to cram as many characters and subplots as possible into it. While not as bad as, say, Spider-Man 3 or the Schumacher Batman movies, it's still overkill. They should have kept things simple. Building towards future movies is fine but your first goal should always be to create a good movie that stands on its own.
Downey is good, although other reviewers pointing out that sometimes he looks bored is a fair assessment. Mickey Rourke hams it up like you might expect him to. The biggest contribution this movie makes is the addition of Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow. Unfortunately, those who like her in the later Avengers or Winter Soldier will likely be disappointed at her performance here. The part isn't well-written and Johansson doesn't rise above the material given her. The rest of the cast is unimpressive. Particularly Don Cheadle, who replaces Terrence Howard as James Rhodes here. Not saying he does a bad job, just nothing that is noteworthy.
Iron Man 2 is not a very good movie. It is watchable if you are a fan of the series or comic book movies in general. But it's a bit of a chore to get through for everybody else. Something I can't say for the other Marvel films to date.