Whereas the first Iron Man was a breath of fresh air when it came to Superhero flicks, the second failed to deliver on both originality and excitement.

From the start, the film was up against some pretty high expectations. It unfortunately just did not manage to meet them or really even get close to meeting them.

The start and finish of the film are reasonably good but the middle is beyond poor, with Tony Stark turning into a buffoon and taking all coolness out of the character. The Iron Man Dancing scene with a drunk Tony Stark, should have never been shot or at least been placed in the deleted scenes section.

The flying chase across town is one of the only scenes that gets the adrenaline pumping and makes for a pretty good actions sequence but…

SPOILER ALERT
The final confrontation between the two Iron Men and Whiplash in a massive Exo-skeleton (where did we see this before…?)  is over a bit too quickly.

Robert Downey Jr. delivers in terms of performance and brings his usual charm to the film. Mickey Rourke makes for a good nemesis as Whiplash and adds some quality. Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts) brings what she brought to Iron Man, basically not much. Scarlett Johansson (Natalia Romanova/Black Widow) wearing a Jumpsuit can do little wrong although she has no real space to show off her acting skills. Also Don Cheadle (Jim Rhodes) isn’t really given an opportunity to shine.

For those interested in the Avenger characters and references it might create some sense of anticipation although the inclusion of this does not really add to the depth of the film.

Once again it comes down to a visually good film ruined by a poorly written plot. A solid potential for effects dragged down by an excessive drive to insert comedy and a complete lack of finding a good story from a huge library of good stories.

Iron Man 3 is already planned to start shooting in 2011, with a  likely face off against the Mandarin, while in the meantime we will have been “treated”  to Thor, The Avengers and Captain America all coming out before IM3.

Let's hope we see some quality in one or more of these films.