Ridiculous first half almost destroyed the movie...

Rating: 5/10 (23 January 2011)

Recap: Tony Stark is back, and loving it. Iron Man has singlehandedly brought peace to the world, and Stark is reaping in the rewards, fame and endless parties. But behind the happy façade there is dark clouds. The government is pressuring him to hand over the suits so they can equip the army, but Tony can deftly handle that. What is worse is that his power core is slowly poisoning him with palladium. He don't want to alarm Pepper, but does a poor job of hiding it. And SHIELD has planted an agent with him. And suddenly a man, Vanko, appears with the same technology as Stark. And he is not about to play nice.
Comments: There is no way about it, the first half is just ridiculous. As sequels go, this is about as bad you can go. The first movie was really good, set a good tone and provided impressive action. But the first half of this sequel, intended to show Stark struggle, but it really made me doubt the entire franchise. No action, and Stark acting stupidly and being drunk most of the time, is not entertaining at all, in the same way that watching drunk people in a bar making a fool of them self is not entertaining either. The only way that could have been fun, if I were drunk myself
Fortunately, the second half improves drastically and rescues the entire movie. Then, finally, the action starts and we get something that resembles the first movie. It isn't good enough to make the movie more than decent on average, more than that is impossible. But it left me with some good thoughts and a little hope for the future of the franchise.
Once again Rourke impresses, and Downey is good as Stark, once he gets his act together. It is always hard when an actor is replaced, but Cheadle does it well. And Johansson's efforts promises more. Paltrow is always good, as is Jackson in his limited role. Jackson's appearance does mark the turnaround point for the movie though. And most the characters are good as well, they got promise. And I do like the hints at the other Marvel heroes. But the character of Justin Hammer was a mistake, he was just annoying. But to tell the truth, the franchise got a good foundation, some real good characters and a real good cast. It does got real good potential. This was, hopefully, just a bad day at work.
5/10