Performances somehow transcend the massive FX

Rating: 4/10 (9 November 2010)

I'd give Shellhead2 four stars, mainly on the strength of the performances, which transcend the odds by holding their own against the utterly massive layers of visual FX.
Mickey Rourke follows up his Award-driven Wrestler role with an attention to detail that went as far as choosing the designs for his full-body prison tattoos and even creating a hitherto unscripted film role for an avian Cockatoo sidekick (which itself steals a scene or three).
Downey as Iron Man inventor Tony Stark refuses to be sunk by his character's many, many flaws, essaying his performance with an air of "My work will redeem my lousy personality" that recalls his virtuoso performance in his earlier Charlie Chaplin bio flick. Cheadle handles his reluctant/replacement hero role with aplomb, appropriating one of the Iron Man suits in the name of some "greater good," which of course proves to instead be an even greater evil (operating within the machinations of the military industrial War Machine).
The unfortunately-named Pepper Potts, as played by Gwyneth Paltrow, holds her own against Downey as her boss-slash-love interest, matching and even usurping his boxing-style banter in all their scenes together. Samuel L. Jackson is clearly just warming up his role as former soldier-turned-super-spy Nick Fury, agent of SHIELD, a character surely destined to appear in virtually all the future Marvel Comics films being set up in Iron Man 2 (news footage from the Hulk movie appears on one of Tony Stark's lab monitors, a busted Captain America shield is used as a construction prop, the mysterious appearance of Thor's hammer takes one character offscreen until the final post-credits roll, a map in the SHIELD office indicates the Black Panther's activities being tracked in Africa.).
And Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow rocks that leather jumpsuit (her stunts being done mostly on wires, rather than CGI generated as insinuated by Mr. Shepherd, tho a stunt double does indeed handle a few seconds of the more ambidextrous maneuvers).