The reason why Iron Man 2 is any good at all is due to two things--the directing of Jon Favreau and the acting of the stellar cast. Because there are many facepalm moments.
This is one busy movie. There are a lot of characters on screen, which is usually the death knell in comic book films but here seems to work well. Certain characters get a shafted--Rhodey, Black Widow, but they get enough good scenes to make an impression.
It is also busy plotwise. Tony Stark has to deal with an angry Russian out to kill him, a rival industrialist jealous of his fame and celebrity, a Senator looking to appropriate the suit for the U.S. Government, the spy organization S.H.I.E.L.D. breathing down his neck, daddy issues, and, if all this wasn't enough, a degenerative disease that is slowly killing him. I'm surprised they didn't give a psycho ex-girlfriend and a newspaper editor out to get huim as well.
Favreau really has grown as a director. He has become quite adept at chosing his scenes carefully, buliding tension, and letting the picture tell the story.
The acting is top notch. The scenes with Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey, Jr. are some of the least action oriented scenes but yet are some of the most exciting. They are totally in tune with each other and with their character. I would also say that this is some of the best acting that Scarlett Johansson has ever done. Her part isn't all that big, but she plays the dual nature of her role well. Sam Rockwell is his usually excellent petulant child self, and Mickey Rourke, Sam Jackson and Don Cheadle turn in their typical solid performances.
The dialogue has the feel of being improvised. When it works, it pops. When it doesn't, it thuds. There is also a good deal of humor here, quite a good deal of it double entendre stuff, but that also works.
However, there are quite a bit of stupid parts as well. Nick Fury is basically a plot contrivance to nudge Tony towards his third act life-changing discovery. Rourke's character gains control of a piece of technology that he really shouldn't have been able to. And the final battle features Iron Man rushing off to "protect the people " in the immediate area, by flying off through a skylight in a glass roof in an auditorium, which is shot out by the bad guys allowing glass to rain down on the people in the audience and flying in front of a big glass window of an observation tower to allow the people inside to be strafed by machine gun fire.
All in all, the good parts outweight the bad points. I liked it, but wonder how it will hold up to repeat viewings.
