Worth seeing despite a few drawbacks

Rating: 8/10 (27 January 2012)

You will be disappointed if you go into this movie expecting the same seamless storytelling and FX spectacle that "Iron Man" was from start to finish. That said, the good parts of this movie will grab you in exactly the same way and they come frequently enough that you can easily overlook the more disappointing parts.
A good example of this high-low effect in "Iron Man 2" is our reintroduction to Tony. That sequence where, suited, he leaps out of the plane and flies into the Stark Expo is just mindbogglingly good, and the subsequent speech and old-time movie get you interested in what's coming up next. Unfortunately, then we are immediately introduced to Tony checking his blood toxicity - this being Tony Stark, the viewer immediately assumes it's a blood alcohol check. We aren't really given any preparation or hint that it's anything more than that, so we're left more confused than anything else until the reason for that gradually becomes clear as the movie progresses.
There are some really good high spots, though. To mention just a few: The start of the movie, with that overlapping narrative from the last movie while we're dropped unexpectedly into somebody's apartment in Russia in wintertime; the Monaco racetrack scene; the fight during the party; that little confrontation in the jail cell between Tony and Vanko (even with no FX, it had good dialogue and atmosphere); and more.
There are also problems, but I'm not going to go into those, as the high points are so good, other than to say that I'm not sure whether to rate the big fight at the end as a high or a low point. There's a bit too much CGI and a bit of a sense of Deus Ex Machina lurking somewhere in the rafters. Vanko is the most emotionally invested one in it, unlike back at the racetrack in Monaco, when Tony very definitely was reacting emotionally to the Russian and what he had done. A little more of that reaction at the end would have been nice.
Overall, though, the movie is a solid 8 on a scale of 10.
I miss Terrence Howard as Rhodey, but Don Cheadle really gets into the character and he handles those action sequences perfectly. You really believe he is the one person (ignoring SHIELD's existence for the moment) who can effectively say "NO!" to Tony Stark, while his conflict as he tries to do the right thing is very clear.
Outstanding performances by Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke as the bad guys, and Garry Shandling was a delightful surprise, especially at the end.
****Spoiler alert****
Gwyneth Paltrow had a lot tougher job this time around, but in relatively few screen appearances, she conveyed Pepper's many transformations and her inner turmoil (in addition to the obvious freak-out in Monaco, of course) so well that you could feel Pepper's relief at the end when she finally and completely quit her employment at Stark Industries, and you can also understand exactly why Tony took the resignation the way he did. A very unexpected but satisfying outcome to that whole subplot.