A very enjoyable sequel

Rating: 8/10 (8 May 2010)

With the surprise success of Iron Man in 2008 a sequel was bound to be made, with Marvel aiming to make the ultimate superhero film, The Avenges. Whilst a sequel was always a risk of never matching the quality of the original, but most superhero films then to buck the trend with the first sequel.
Six months after the events of the first film Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) has become even more of a star because of his success as Iron Man. He made Stark Industries into a more ethical company and appoints his assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) as his new CEO. But there is trouble on the horizon: the US Senate demand that Tony hands over his Iron Man suit, the palladium that in the arc reactor that keeps him alive is also poisoning his blood, killing him slowly. There is also a deadly threat from Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), a Russian physicist who develops his own reactor and powerful suit so he can gain revenge against the Stark family. Vanko gets recruited by Tony's main rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) to make an army of suits so they can take down Iron Man. With Tony slowly dying his behaviour becomes more erratic and he slowly drives his friends away, with his best friend Lt. Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) to steal one his suits, allowing War Machine to be born.
Iron Man 2 has many good and bad elements, mostly good. Jon Favreau continues in the director's chair and adds to his cast of talented actors. Of course Downey and Paltrow were great together and had excellent chemistry. It was a shame that Terrence Howard left as Rhodey but the filmmakers found a great replacement with Cheadle, an excellent actor with a role that increases in this film. Rourke and Rockwell both made great villains, particularly Rourke as the intelligence and powerful Vanko. It was a shame he did not have more screen time as he was a great as the bad guy and shows he was not just a one dimensional character. Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson were also good additions (yes I know Jackson was in the end-credits scenes in Iron Man). But they screen time was limited. Favreau improves as an action director with better actions scenes like in Monaco and the special effects were brilliant like in the last film. But the end fight scene could have been a little more epic. Favreau makes the tone of Iron Man 2 a little more serious then Iron Man was (which was not bad at all), but he keeps a strong scene of fun in the film and there is a lot of humour throughout. He knows how to deliver a blockbuster. Plus there are plenty of hints toward the upcoming Avengers film, which is great to see for all the comic-book geek within all of us.
But Iron Man 2 is not as strong as Iron Man. The screenplay by Justin Theroux is sadly a little too unfocused and had too many subplots. Some elements do not fit as well in the film and makes it a little too long and some felt forced like Rhodey's falling out with Tony. It also suffers from having too villains, confusing the audience on who they should focus on. What made Iron Man was because it had a simple story. But this is minor and the screenplay is solid for the most part.
A very enjoyable start to 2010's summer season.