iron man 2

i was really excited to see this movie. the first one was so much fun that i was very eager to have that same level of fun again. unfortunately, that didnt quite happen. this movie picks up right after the last one and we get to see some pretty interesting stuff about the fall out from tony stark admitting that he is iron man. its an interesting choice by the people behind the film to ditch the secret identity straight off the bat. what we see is that the government is not comfortable with stark having such a powerful weapon so they try to take it away from him, and we see that some bad people with grudges against stark want to take it away from him too. the story follows stark's main competitor for weapon sales in the u.s., a guy named hammer, played with fun by sam rockwell, as he tried to take down stark while stealing all his ideas. theres a russian named 'whiplash' in there too. anyway, one of the things that made the first movie so much fun was the fact that robert downey jr. played stark with such enjoyment as stark lived with reckless abandon after getting his life back and redirecting himself into building a suit. this time we find stark as he is dying from the power source in his chest. we see him again live recklessly, but the fun is gone. sure, its meant to look like fun, with him doing whatever he wants, even becoming some sort of iron man dj? but things go south when rhodes, his best friend, takes one of his suits and gives it to the government just because he and stark got in a fight. from there the story hits all the marks it needs to, there are even some cool effects, but the thrill is gone. what had been lighthearted and carefree in the first one becomes laborious and predictable in this one. sure, there are some good moments, but over all it fell pretty flat.