Excuse To Eat Popcorn and Junior Mints: Iron Man 2

I loved the first Iron Man movie and was admittedly fairly excited about the sequel. When reviews first started to come out for Iron Man 2, I wasn't surprised to see that they were for the most part fairly ho-hum as sequels rarely live up to the originals and especially in the world of comic book adaptations (The Dark Knight, X-Men 2 and Spiderman 2 being exceptions to the rule in my opinion). Ho-hum doesn't equal "bad", so my desire to see the film and judge for myself remained strong.

Iron Man 2 is definitely not as good as the original, but it is absolutely worth seeing if you enjoyed the original. Robert Downey, Jr. and Gwyenth Paltrow both put in good performances once again and Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell do fine jobs as the bad guys (Rockwell more so than Rourke in my opinion). Don Cheadle as War Machine worked fine for me too and I didn't miss Terence Howard at all. The problem with the movie is that it tries to squeeze in a lot of background story. This causes the action/battle sequences to be fewer, which is disappointing and the other problem is the background story feels rushed and not fully developed. I never really bought into Ivan Vanko's (Rourke) hatred of Tony Stark/Iron Man which was a large part of the plot. That being said, the prevelance of Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Scarlett Johansson (who honestly is one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood) as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow, the glimpse of Captain America's shield, the after the credits scene showing the discovery of Thor's Hammer and the glimpse of a folder with the name "Avengers" on it are all wonderful appetite whetters for comic book/Marvel geeks about the upcoming Avengers film. I also enjoyed the films incorporation of humor which I think is probably owed in large part to director Jon Favreau (who also has a nice minor role in the film as Stark's driver).

So, like I said earlier, if you liked Iron Man, then go see Iron Man 2. If you didn't like Iron Man, then the sequel probably isn't going to change your mind about the franchise.