Iron Man 2, directed again by Jon Favreau, was definitely not one of my favorites, but with the messiness & cheesiness aside, it past the time well, being an overall fun superhero film. With Jon Favreau hesitating to sign back to the series due to contract and release date disputes, him and the creative team really struggled to make a cohesive story, with a great characters, and a good amount of risks. Coming off of one of the most respected films of the MCU, they had great potential to make this great, but this unfortunately felt like just another set-up for what's to come. Iron Man 2 had a lot of good ideas, but because everything was so underdeveloped, this film fell flat! If Marvel granted Favreau the extra year he requested, I feel like this could've potentially been just as good as the first, and maybe even better, but because Marvel was so stingey, the negatives of this film falls on their shoulders.

Although the story was pretty fun, it was convoluted with countless plots, that were disgracefully underdeveloped. With all of plots they threw in, they could've easily made an Iron Man 4, and maybe even 5. The way they organized these scenes were just so bland, and thrown together; things just came out and happened out of spit, with minimal set up. The main conflict of the film was real flimsy and counteractive, making no sense, while having little risks.

This was the worst character showing of the Iron Man trilogy. They casted some returning, and new great talent, but due to the weak script, it held all of these characters back, making our returning characters a little less likable, and new characters intolerable. It's tough to be hard on Robert Downey Jr. because he carries these films, but the team tried too hard to give him an arch, that everything about his character was all over the place, and some things were even forgotten. Tony Stark is one of the least likable in this film because of the extra sense of bitterness, over saturated his character and performance; nevertheless, he still possesses that hard to love charisma, while keeping up with his snarky comedy. Gwyneth Paltrow returned as Pepper Potts, having more to do than the first film, but all that consisted of was her getting a better job title, and being annoying and inconsistent. Paltrow tries her best to put on that woman power performance, but her character development wasn't the best. Rhodey takes the worst turn out of all the returning characters, not just because of the recasting, because I do enjoy Don Cheadle in the role, but because of his terrible character development, that just turned him into an "entitled", arrogant, supporting character. Cheadle puts on a fine performance, but his process of becoming war machine is so fast, and almost laughable! Come the third act, he becomes the Rhodey we all know and love, and seems to becoming a great addition to the MCU family. Jon Favreau returns in his role as Happy Hogan, and you can't help but love to see it. Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson got her introduction into the MCU, and she makes the most of it. While not having so much to do, and also not being one of the cooler avengers, she still serves her purpose. Sam Rockwell makes his debut in the MCU as Justin Hammer, and by George, he has to be in the top three worst villains the MCU has ever put on the silver screen. You can't knock Rockwell down so hard because it's no mystery that the screenplay was horrible, but I cannot believe for one minute that he's supposed to be a threat, especially with his motive. He is a generic, twerpish version of Tony Stark, that's beyond cringey. Mickey Rourke had the same issues of being a wannabe Tony Stark, being flat out underdeveloped, underappreciated, and underused.

There really wasn't that much more action than the first time around, nor moved the needle on execution. The action was still pretty fun, while taking a minor step forward in special effects, but other than that, it didn't really standout on it's own.

Overall, Iron Man 2 isn't quite what Iron Man was, but it still managed to have some fun scenes, and decent laughs. This isn't one I'd go out of my way to watch more than once, but it's alright.