Slightly better than the first, but still does not cut it

Rating: 2/10 (23 May 2013)

Let me tell you this: the first Iron Man was ridiculous. Iron Man 2 attempts to be more grown up audience-oriented, but it fails flat on its face at many points. All the characters are pretty much cartoonish. Well, one should not expect much from a comic book-based production. However, the dumbest part (as it is always the case with Hollywood) is their depiction of Russia and the Russian people. First of all, Moscow is not a some kind of a snowed in dumpster. These days it is more impressive than London or NY. It is what it is and if you are not sure about that, then buy yourself a plane ticket to Moscow and see for yourself. Secondly, why the heck those Hollywood producers and directors cannot afford to get even one actor who speaks realistic-sounding Russian language? They make stuff up in the dumbest way when it comes to things foreign! And it looks stupid and cheap. What is the story with their idea of the Russian names, too? All those "Ivan Vanko" names sound idiotically made-up. Also, how come that practically each and every actor who plays a Russian character does not even remotely resemble a Russian-type person? I mean, the good old Mickey Rourke is so overloaded with Botox that he does not even look like himself anymore! And who told those Hollywood people that a great inventor and a scientist would look and act like an ape and a very common thug of a completely indiscernible national origin? Do they meet a lot of ingenious and highly educated thug apes there in Hollywood? In short, the director of this movie did not bother one bit to make his production appear even reasonably realistic where it could use some realism. The whole flick just screams "we know that whoever will watch our movie is a dull, uneducated garbage-food eater and whatever we make up is going to be good enough for our 'IQ in the negative range' viewer!"