A drop in the series but an important one

Rating: 7/10 (11 March 2018)

Iron Man 2 follows the events of the first Iron Man and takes a turn to change the series into what we know now as the MCU. With many cast members coming back for the sequel we are introduced to a lot of new and fun faces to the series as well. With the introduction to many new beloved characters many fans have fell in love with with every installment added to the Marvel series.
Story wise with Iron Man 2 has dropped slightly since the first, feeling more like a bridging movie to set up other movies and the future Avengers movie that came out two years after Iron Man 2. With the introduction of many now beloved faces including Black Widow, War Machine, and the Iconic Nick Fury with Agent Phil Coulson too. This film though did give us a more of an understanding with the arc reactor in Tony's chest and the overall negative aspects of him using it and the Iron Man suit too. Alongside with giving us a darker side of Tony's father, Howard Stark and the more darker stuff he did before his mysterious death 1991.
Jon Favreau once again directs the hell out of this film. Feeling more updated and bigger than the fantastic first film. With the use of long uncut takes in many beautiful scenes and action packed ones as well. And with Favreau acting in the film with a much bigger part than the first film, he made himself serve very much as the comic relief in some very action packed scenes and very serious scenes as well. That was the one thing with this film is that it felt much more comical than the first film, which had splashes of comedy put throughout mainly done by Tony Stark himself in very awkward scenes to write them off a lot better. Iron Man 2 though, Many characters just come off as comedians like Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer is just all around comical and is suppose to serve as a driving force for the main antagonist but comes off as mainly a little prod that keeps poking the antagonist until he breaks out yelling.
And that is where I come to the script, a hand full of the lines in this film feel very forced and rushed to either rapidly pass the story forward or to get off some supposedly funny joke that will sometimes come off as just awful and unfunny all around. But the other majority of lines and scenes in this film do have a lot of power to them like the interrogation scene between Tony and Ivan and the phone call too later in the film. Very powerful and gives an almost 'cat and mouse' feel to the film on who will outsmart the other in this race to kill one another. And of course the writing for Black Widow was amazing with the different dialogue and tones she has to do for the different personalities she had to pull off in this film to be that 'agent' status throughout.
Action and special effects wise definitely grew a lot more since the first film with many more action scenes and drastically improvement on the CGI work and fight choreographing too to it. Feels a lot more natural during the whole film, thanks to Favreau and his brilliant directing too with it.
Iron Man 2 is definitely a let down to the near perfect first film but it definitely is a fun one to watch with its unique characters and bigger and badder fights.
Iron Man 2 gets a 7.5/10