Iron Man 2 is a mess. It's main plot of Tony Stark having to deal with the fact that he's slowly dying is actually very interesting, but very poorly executed. There are too many other subplots fighting for the spotlight that there is no focused storyline in this movie. This film decides to erase all of Stark's character development and arc in the first movie and it feels very jarring to see him do things that would be out of character for him. The main villain, Ivan Vanko, actually had an interesting backstory and relationship to Tony Stark, however they wasted all his potential by never focusing or explaining his motivations, making him a bland and generic villain. Justin Hammer is an extremely over-the-top and silly character and was not enjoyable at all.

This movie was extremely lacking in action sequences. There are only 2 fight scenes in this movie with the protagonist fighting the main antagonist, and most of the runtime is spent glossing over useless subplots which could have been easily cut from the movie. Throughout this movie, Tony and Pepper were constantly arguing and it was really getting on my nerves.

There are many more problems I have with this movie, but if I continued to list them I would be writing this review for the whole day. Overall, Iron Man 2 is a huge step down from its predecessor, and I was very disappointed with this film.