Iron Man 2

I didn't really care for this movie.

The first Iron Man was overrated, but a lot of fun. It was a cool action movie with a funny performance by Robert Downey Jr. and a great visual portrayal of the Iron Man suit. The sequel is boring, has an obnoxious performance by Downey Jr., and has maybe ten 15 minutes or so of actual screen time for Iron Man. This movie was basically 99% Tony Stark and only 1% Iron Man. This is annoying not only because the movie is called "Iron Man," but because the character of Tony Stark (as portrayed in this movie, and not the way he is in the comics!) is completely annoying, obnoxious, and unlikable. In the first movie he was kind of charming and witty. In this movie, he's literally one of the more hateful characters I've ever seen in any movie. I couldn't root for him because I didn't even like watching him on screen. I just kept waiting for him to put on the damn suit, which only happened about three times, with about 45 minutes or so between appearances.

In the comics, Iron Man is actually a hero who fights crime, goes up against super villains, and does a lot to make the world a better, safer place. In the Iron Man movies, Iron Man fights people who attack Iron Man. That's all he does. There is absolutely nothing noble or heroic about this character. He basically just defends himself when other people attack him. So why am I supposed to care? I don't even like the character, so the idea that all he's doing is defending himself and not actually working to help anybody else makes this entire film pointless. Honestly, there really was no plot other than that Tony Stark was annoying so a couple of other guys wanted to kill him. But the end of the movie, I was rooting for the other guys.

But the scenes with Iron Man were pretty cool, I must admit. I just wish there had been more of them and that they had gone on a lot longer. The big action sequence at the end where Iron Man and War Machine fight those robots was awesome, but it was over in about two minutes. No joke. Then there was the final confrontation between Whiplash and Iron Man, which was over in about 30 seconds. This final battle was without a doubt the most anticlimactic finale I've ever seen in a comic book movie. It sucked.

I did like the scene where Sam Jackson and Robert Downey Jr were talking at that donut shop, but only because Sam Jackson was the only likable character in the entire movie. There was a lot of drama about how Terence Howard was replace by Don Cheadle, but I honestly think that Howard lucked out. Cheadle is a wonderful actor but he had nothing at all to do in this movie, and his total lack of chemistry with Downey Jr. made the pair seem like enemies and not the close friends they were supposed to be. Oh, and Scarlet Johansson is gorgeous and looked fantastic in that leather suit, but I also wish those scenes had gone on longer too.

So this movie kind of sucked. It was boring, had a main character who was thoroughly detestable, and was almost completely devoid of any satisfying action scenes. Here's my advice for the writers of Iron Man 3: Have a lot more Iron Man, and have him fighting for something other than the preservation of Tony Stark and his company.