Iron Man 2 is a great way to kick the summer movie season off with a bang. It’s full of some great action scenes, impressive visual effects, and snappy one-liners. Unfortunately, it’s these very same things that make it an unworthy successor to the original Iron Man from 2008.
Whereas the original focused more on the characters and how they developed as three dimensional people, the second provides them with quick quips and proceeds with the action sequences. This style of film doesn’t lend itself well to the quality of actor which appears in Iron Man 2. Only three cast members seemed at home in this more low brow setting (Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sam Rockwell) whereas the rest came across as wanting to do more but not having permission, with the exception of Mickey Rourke and Jon Favreau who just appeared incapable of anything more. In fact, Favreau’s character was completely unnecessary and Favreau himself should have just remained behind the camera.
So ultimately, Iron Man 2 is a great summer action movie full of everything you would expect from a film of that genre. Had this been the first and only Iron Man film so far it would have stood up fine on it’s own but since it is the second in the series you are forced to look at how it relates to it’s predecessor, not only via the plot but in overall quality. In those regards, it fails on every level and it’s those failures that hurt the final experience.
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