Iron Man 2

Sadly, this is really quite a lacklustre sequel that takes formulaic to a whole new level. "Stark" (Robert Downey Jnr.) has now been outed as the eponymous super hero, and just about everyone is after his technology. Aside from Uncle Sam, it appears that the son of his now deceased business partner - "Ivan Vanko" (Mickey Rourke) - is first in the queue. Armed with some pretty impressive laser whips, he is out to avenge his poor dead dad. Meantime, business rival "Hammer" (Sam Rockwell) sees an opportunity to capitalise on this by offering the government a drone army that could do the peace in our time bit, but of course he has a megalomanic ulterior motive... Though the film looks good, and there are plenty of action scenes with pyrotechnics and airborne antics, the scenarios recycle themselves once to often. There is no jeopardy, and both Rockwell and Rourke really just substitute excessive ham for menace. Most of the originality and humour of the first film has been lost, indeed this is just a bit relentless and actually quite dull. Perhaps because so many of the other MCU characters are more interesting than this one? I don't know, but though I enjoyed it on the big screen, I was actually quite bored by it all.