I wanted to love this sequel as I loved the original, and yes, it is pretty good. It just could have been so much better without it's one major flaw.

Rating: 7/10 (3 May 2010)

Considering it had such big iron shoes to fill, I thought this sequel didn't exactly disappoint. Scarlett and Sam were nice additions. Mickey was OK even though he wasn't as good as the other two. The Cheadle replacement was a pretty weird change but it didn't F things up. RDJ had some pretty good banter with everybody, as ought to be expected nowadays in a movie with him in it. Gwyneth was nice to see again even though they cut out her best scene, the helmet-tossing from the original trailer.
Speaking of the trailer, after seeing it I was worried that the movie might be watered down like Spiderman 3 with too many villains, but while SM3 shouldn't have included both Venom and Sandman, IM2 works well enough adding Whiplash and Justin Hammer. Like SM3, it also had an unnecessary dancing scene, but RDJ's wasn't the deal-breakingly dumb dance that Tobey's was.
Overall, was it worth seeing? Absolutely, it was worth seeing. I certainly don't think I'm going to feel as bad liking it down the road as I do when I think about what a mess both Pirates 2 & 3 were. IM2 didn't screw up the franchise, and it's definitely still sequel-worthy.
But unfortunately RDJ worries about dying through much of the film, and that is the sequel's major flaw. While his issues were made to make sense in the context of the film, I've got to admit that having RDJ secretly mope around by himself worrying about his own mortality wasn't exactly what I was expecting. It dampens the movie's spirit, and I wished the filmmakers had gone in another direction with the character instead. It's like you can hear the pre-movie round-table discussion, "Iron Man had depth in the first one because he made the decision to stop making weapons...But how do we try and add some depth this time around?...I know, we'll make him sick from his suit...he'll struggle with dying most of the film" It's too bad that decision didn't end up on the cutting room floor because that whole story arc, leading up to his father having the chance to save him from the grave, just didn't feel necessary. It was subtraction by addition. They didn't need to try to add any more depth to Tony Stark, face it, he s enough of an admirable icon as it is. He's rich, cool, funny, and has always has especially hot and interesting women populating his world. Not only does manage to pull off all of that but he also has a conscience and flies around in one of the best tech gadgets ever -- enough already, they should have left it at that. Just have him show up and do it again, let's hang out with Tony Stark one more time, that's all the IM2 crew needed to do.
But by making "Will he or won't he survive?" Tony's central conflict, it had at least a minor buzzkill effect on everything else too. By threatening to kill off Tony with the story arc they chose, IM2's crew tried just a little too hard to add unnecessary depth to a character we already liked. In a lesser movie this flaw of having a popular character suffer through a life-threatening circumstance might have killed the film, but luckily it pulls off some new twists and retains enough of the original's familiar virtues to still be able to recommend the new effort. RDJ's Tony Stark is still rich, cool and funny, and even though it took him most of this sequel, he now seems to have recovered his health, too. With any luck his poisoned suit issues are now behind him and he'll be back to his regular self in Iron Man 3.