Plot summary (from IMDb.com): With the world now aware of his dual life as the armored superhero Iron Man, billionaire inventor Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) faces pressure from the government, the press, and the public to share his technology with the military. Unwilling to let go of his invention, Stark, along with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and James “Rhodey” Rhodes (Don Cheadle) at his side, must forge new alliances – and confront powerful enemies.
Liked:
- Surprisingly, I liked the Rhodey character the best. Stark was pretty arrogant in the first film, but he at least had some charm to go along with it. In this film, he was just obnoxious and annoying. Rhodey, by contrast, was smart and funny — and kicked just as much ass.
- I wasn’t expecting much out of Scarlett Johansson, but thought she was pretty good too. I liked her character and wanted to see more of her. And I thought she had far more chemistry with Stark than Pepper Potts did.
- The technology was cool. I want those massive touch screens in my home, too!
Disliked:
- The plot was kind of vague and confusing. What was Mickey Rourke’s beef with Stark? That Howard Stark stole something from Mickey’s father? Or was Mickey just trying to use the technology to make his own line of suits? I didn’t really catch what happened between the elder Stark and the Russian, so Mickey’s motives remained unclear to me.
- The dialogue seemed way off in this film. It was as though the writer was trying way too hard to make Stark as glib and funny as he was in the first installment — but it didn’t work. As I said before, Tony was just pretty annoying in this one, nothing more.
- Geez, if other characters hadn’t mentioned that Pepper Potts was Stark’s girlfriend, I never would have guessed it. Why was she such an ice queen throughout the whole thing? Yikes.
Rating:
After thoroughly enjoying Iron Man, I was hoping for more of the same out of Iron Man 2. Instead, I got something that felt like little more than a boring retread than anything else. Maybe I was in a bad mood when I watched this, but it didn’t do anything for me. I give the film 3 stars out of 5.