Iron Man 2 (2010) ****

Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) has a ton of problems. He's playing Steve Jobs to Stark Expo. The U.S. government is on him to turn over the Iron Man suit. His competitor is wanting a bigger market share. And Mickey Rourke is trying to kill him. What is a super hero to do?

Two years ago I wrote about the original Iron Man ushering in the era of the terribly flawed super hero along with The Dark Knight. These aren't Supermen or silly teenagers bitten by radioactive whatever. They're weak men with obsessions. As we get into Iron Man 2 Tony Stark has the same issues, though they are toned down a bit. It's like watching your kid grow up from Legos to video games to girls. Tony has advanced and is more mature.

Iron Man 2 is mainly a competition between Tony and Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a weapons manufacturer who is filling the void left by Stark industries. In the shadows is Ivan Vanko (Rourke) who blames Starks family for leaving his father to rot in a Siberian hell. As happens in super hero movies, Hammer and Vanko strike an agreement to benefit both parties and pee in the Stark punchbowl.

This sequel is not quite as good as the first one. The key word here is quite. It's still a very good film to start off the summer movie rush that seems to be filled with stinkers this year (I'm looking at you Karate Kid). The cast performs beautifully together and we can't forget Gwyneth Paltrow returning as Pepper Potts, Tony's guardian angel looking over his shoulder. Scarlett Johansson joins the cast as another tough woman going from Woody Allen films to beating the crap out of a dozen guys at one sitting. Don Cheadle replaces Terrence Howard and I can just see Howard kicking himself for it. This is the fun movie for the character and Cheadle does a fantastic job filling the role.

Directed once again by Jon Favreau Iron Man 2 follows the same basic style of the first film with sleek special effects and NO 3-D! Overall the film is great, but the alcoholism angle that I had heard so much about is really brought in and whisked away rather quickly. Other than little things like that Iron Man 2 is a sequel that is a worthy second chapter. It's a great action film that delivers for its entire running time. A solid summer popcorn flick.