Iron Man 2:Summer time has officially begun....

Two years ago, there was a major shock in the world of comic book movies. I'm not talking about The Dark Knight. That film, as good as it was (and I am on the side that views it as one of the best movies of the decade), it's quality and success were not that surprising (you had a successful director doing a sequel to well-respected movie with an extremely talented cast). Instead, I'm talking about Iron Man, which started out the summer season. Iron Man is the movie that Robert Downey Jr., as respected as he was, could be a legitimate movie star as well as a trained actor. It also took a character that was not that well known and made him immensely popular with director Jon Favreau using similar techniques as was used far less successfully in Daredevil.

As should be expected, because of its success, we have Iron Man 2, which continues the story and, like most sequels, does it bigger and more expensively. Actually, as part of an ultra-ambitious project, Iron Man 2 is actually the next chapter in a much larger series of films ultimately leading up to The Avengers which will feature the actors and characters from Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk as well as the upcoming movies Thor and Captain America.

This movie, though, focuses further on on Tony Stark who, at the end of the last movie, announced to the world that he was Iron Man. The movie explores the ramifications of that decision. Because his suit is so powerful, the government wants it turned over to them so that they can build an army out of it. Also opposing him is a weapons manufacturer, Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) who enlists the services of a Russian physicist harboring an old family grudge (Mickey Roarke). Add to that the fact that he is allowing fame go to his head and his company suffers so he makes his right-hand girl, Pepper Potts the new CEO. In addition, he is beginning to realize that the suit which makes him so powerful is slowly poisoning his blood stream.

As you could guess, this is an extremely crowded movie. Like Batman Returns (which also featured multiple villains and numerous storylines), this movie is so busy creating the next plot point, there is less time for character development. As a result, some of the characters such as Stark's best friend, Rhodey (Don Cheadle, taking over for Terrence Howard from the first movie), is given too little screen time. Also, some of the plot points, such as Scarlett Johanson as a new office worker seem awfully rushed and incomplete. It's almost as if they were trying to cram 6 hours worth of movies into just 2 hours.

Also, Favreau relies a little heavily on the special effects for the action scenes. Near the end, the movie becomes a battle between the CGI effects and it's nowhere as interesting as some of the earlier scenes where you could see the actors and follow exactly what was going on.

What is probably the biggest flaw with the movie is that, at no time, do you feel that Iron Man is in danger. In films like Superman 2, Spiderman 2 and The Dark Knight, the audience truly wondered how the hero was going to defeat the villain. Deep down, you knew the hero would win but it was unclear how. With Iron Man 2, there is no real mystery to that. The ending is fairly clear and it never really looks like Stark is all that worried about defeating Rockwell and Roarke. Thus, there's little suspence to the action scenes and the big set pieces come off as rather hollow.

What does save the movie though and makes it worth watching are the actors. Robert Downey Jr. is an absolute delight as Stark. He makes good use of his gift for tossing off one-liners and lightens up most of his scenes. In fact, the movie is at its best when it's dealing with the light comedy. You can tell Jon Favreau is much more comfortable during these bits and they feel far more natural than the more action-oriented scenes.

As a note for those who do go see it: stay through the closing credits. Afterwards, there's a quick scene previewing what will be the next chapter in this saga.

Grade: C+