Iron Man 2 - Solid or a flop? (spoiler free)

I wasn't over-excited to see this film.  I thoroughly enjoyed the first one, a fun film with lots of bangs and flashes.  I wasn't sure I wanted to see it all again. I seem to prefer origin movies to their sequels.  I think filmmakers dump all the character exposition into the origin film.  Filling the second with another enemy to provide bigger and better explosions.

I have never been a comic book fan so I'll judge this film as a film that's a sequel to a film.  I know of nothing before the first film.

The cast doesn't bring any worries.  Sam Worthington is nowhere to be seen thank the Lord.  Robert Downey Jr did a sterling job in the first and I expected similar here.  I really didn't like his character in this film.  I think this was the desired effect though.  He'd lost any charm he had and was just a smug, arrogant git.  Not great really as disliking the main character lost me most of my emotional involvement with the film.  Sam Rockwell gave a great showing in his role.  Totally and utterly predictable but that was only to be expected with such a character in such a film.  Gwyneth Paltrow gave a pretty good performance.  I just have little respect for her character.  She should just tell her boss to piss off and go work somewhere less stressful.  She gets a lot less than she puts into that relationship.  A bit sappy really.  Don Cheadle's character is very similar.  I couldn't see what Tony Stark had to make those close to him so emasculated and a tad pathetic.  Mickey Rourke was great as his character.  One of the best roles in the film.  I didn't like the way the story panned out near the end but that wasn't Rourke's fault at all.  Scarlett Johanssen played my favourite role in the film.  I don't think I understand her character properly yet.  I'm hoping we see more of her.  She definitely played the least obvious character in the whole film.  Samuel L Jackson was used perfectly.  Just enough to make him interesting.  Little enough not to make us want more.

Overall I thought the story was a little too obvious in places.  Most of the characters were paint by numbers types.  Tony Stark needs to be a little more likable if they make another.  He just needed a slap in this one.  I found him completely unsympathetic, even with what he was suffering.  The scene on the Monaco circuit was just totally ridiculous.  Yes, I know I was watching a comic story but it just felt ridiculous.  As did the usual against all odds climactic final scene.

It was enjoyable though.  It was fun.  It would have been much more fun had it been 40 minutes shorter.  Please filmmakers contain yourselves when it comes to running time.  It shouldn't be a relief to get out of the cinema.  A shorter run time would maybe have me watching this again.  Maybe we could get 'cinema-goers cut' editions of films.  Trimmed down so they're better paced.

Marvel, it's a lovely idea to get a teaser for your next release.  Just don't make me sit through 5 minutes of credits for 10 seconds, it's arrogant and bloody annoying.  please just put them on Youtube.

3 out of 5 pawprints.