[Movies] Iron Man 2

So today is the day everyone's been waiting for: Iron Man 2 is finally here! I've seen it and am gonna outline what I thought what was great about it, and what wasn't so great about it.

What I Liked:

Robert Downey, Jr. did an even better job than he did in the first. He is the perfect Tony Stark and a great Iron Man too. Don Cheadle, who takes over as James Rhodes, is great too. Overall the acting is top-notch. But the stand-out performance for me was Mickey Rourke as Whiplash. What a great villain and a fantastically evil performance by Mickey.

The action is pumped up a lot more too. The final climax rocks and gets you on the edge of your seat. The introduction of War Machine is cool too as he adds a lot of charisma and muscle to the film. Most critics are complaining that the action is too loud, but I didn't think so. It's really exciting and is a definite step up from the first.

There is a TON of fan service here. Most of it sets up the Avengers film (which is coming in 2012) which is cool for anyone who love the Marvel universe. Oh and stay after the credits if you want a cool surprise.

What I Didn't Like:

It was WAY too short for what it was trying to do. It suffers from classic sequelitis; in other words, since they set up the origin of Iron Man in the first movie, there were an infinite number of possibilities for the sequels. Unfortunately, the filmmakers tried to stuff too many characters and plot lines into this movie that it feels bloated. It doesn't suffer as badly from this as Spider-man 3 did, but there is way too much here for just 2 hours.

The first 40 minutes and the last 40 minutes are AMAZING, but the middle drags. It seems like the filmmakers forgot they were making an Iron Man movie for a while. Once the movie found itself again everything was great, but for about 30 minutes in the middle the movie kinda goes nowhere. And as much as I loved Mickey Rourke's character, he didn't have much to do. Had they fleshed his character out more and gotten rid of some of the other minor characters, this would be a better film.

As much as I loved the fan service, I felt it was kind of shoe-horned in there. We didn't need all the all the Nick Fury stuff, as to me that made this feel more like a 2-hour commercial for the Avengers than a full-fledged Iron Man movie.

Final Verdict:

It may seem like I hate this movie, but trust me, I'm just nit-picking here. I really enjoyed it and think it was great, just not as good as the original. It's not a disappointment like some critics have said, but had it been a little more focused it could have been really great.

And who am I kidding? You're gonna see this anyway. You're gonna love it because it's a lot of fun. But it could have been a lot more.

Final Score: 3.5 out of 5