Good sequel

Rating: 8/10 (5 May 2010)

I think I enjoyed Iron Man 2 marginally more than the first movie, albeit with some reservations.
My main reason for liking it was that there was more story to it which was not simply origin. While one accepts that the first movie had to have origin in it, it was good for that not to need to be addressed here.
Mickey Rourke was an excellent villain, Sam Jackson had a little more room to play with Nick Fury, Scarlet Johanson finally got to kick some butt after demure décolletage and a couple of good moments through most of the film, and Downey and Paltrow reprised their characters pleasingly enough. Cheadle was fine as Rhodes, and Garry Shandling played an oily senator in what, to me, was one of the most enjoyable parts of the movie - a Congressional Hearing towards the start which is held with the intention of forcing Stark Industries to hand over the Iron Man tech to the US government.
Oh, and THAT shield (not S.H.I.E.L.D.) makes another appearance.
The only wrong note performance-wise was Sam Rockwell - his Justin Hammer never for a second convinced me that he could be CEO of any major company despite the fact that it was a highly entertaining performance.
On the action side, I have three comments. One, I wasn't sure what effect they employed during the Scarlet Johanson combat sequences, but it made them appear very jerky. Two, I felt the flying sequences were really difficult to follow (in contrast with the first movie, where I thought they were excellent). And, three, in common with the first movie, I thought the ending to the climactic action sequence was rather perfunctory.
But there was enough going on to keep me entertained without the action sequences being critical.