Not being a massive, Die-Hard fan of Iron-Man has enabled me to (I think) walk into these films with a sense of perspective. I haven't obsessed over trailers or watched any pre-release clips on purpose, in order to allow some surprises.

Don't get me wrong: I am a huge Superhero fan, and have in the past, watched the iron-Man cartoon, but that's it.

My over-all impression of this film is that it's bigger, brighter, bolder and dumber than the first film. That's not a criticism. the first film had a degree of suspensions of disbelief that were contextually acceptable.

With the second film, everything has been ramped up. The action is bigger, the plot: bigger, the characters: larger, the threat: larger and this all amplifies what was great about the first film. It also does the same for the bad.

With that said: the good far outweighed the bad in the first one and it's still the case with this one. It's just that the weak parts of the film are larger and more obvious this time round.

The performances were great, of course, aside from Scarlett Johanson who just looked out of place throughout in my opinion.

Go see it. You will like it. But Dark Knight it ain't (despite trying to better the number of cars Batman blew up).