Iron Man 2 picks up where the first movie finishes. We find ourselves in Moscow presented with a sick and old man being cared for by a mean and broken looking Mickey Rourke. It becomes clear pretty quickly that the old man worked with Tony Starks father and following his death we cut to Rourke's character (Ivan Vanko)  in Tony Stark inventing mode. The opening to this movie attempts to fill you with a sense of dread and it is clear that our hero is going to pay for the actions of his family.

The dread is cut short when we cut to Iron Man jumping out of a plan with ACDC's Shoot To Thrill blasting out. Iron Man lands in a filled arena to cheer and amazement - cue classic Tony Stark delivering a narcissistic speech. A point which is cleverly mentionedby Pepper Potts later in the film.

Iron Man 2 feels like a different movie from the first. Jon Favreau was free from the chains of an origin story here and could have chosen from a plethora of paths. While the first film introduced us to the characters in style - here we find ourselves witnessing the US government attemptiing to muscle in on Tony's intellect by taking the Iron Man suit. Tony is clearly on borrowed time here and you can tell that it is only a matter of time before the US officials succeed in their endeavours. Senator Stern played by the great Garry Shandling enlists Colonel James Rhodes to read a section of his report against Tony Stark. Rhodes remarks that the comment is taken out of context and is a clever poke at politics and government spin. This admission later tests Rhodes and Starks friendship and concludes with a battle between the both where a drunk Stark finds himself pitted against an angry War Machine in a brutal brawl. This is one of the best scenes in the movie and is heightened by the excitement of actually seeing Rhodes in the suit. Jon Favreau promised this in the last film 'next time baby' and he delivered in style.

Don Cheadle does a solid job as Starks friend and ally and had he played Rhodes in the first movie I could have lived with it but the absence of Terence Stamp was an elephant in the room. Speculations are that Howard was unhappy with the terms of the contract and while Iron Man 2 is a good movie, the change of actor was hard to swallow.

Upon first viewing I found myself to be a little dissapointed however when I watched a 2nd and 3rd time I came around and picked up on social commentary on the US's quest for superiority. Don't get me wrong this movie is no Zero Dark Thirty and is essentially a comic book movie but you can see where the writers were putting their eggs. The action scenes are fantastic and once again the best thing about Iron Man is Robert Downey Jr. Particularly impressive was the performance from Sam Rockwell who provides some comic relief as Justin Hammer - a rival weapons manufacturer who was only too happy to step in to the government contracts Stark left behind. While I enjoyed Sam Rockwell in the scenes he had I could not help but feel the character was under used and I cross my fingers every day in the hope that we will get to see him as Justin Hammer once again.

While Sam Rockwell provides us with a light and comical villain, Mickey Rourke's Ivan Vanko is the polar opposite which makes for interesting viewing when both villains are on screen together. Rourke was perfectly cast here and while his lines are few his prescence on screen more than makes us for it. He is clearly a match for Tony Stark which makes for an exciting climax. However as exciting as it was, as soon as it started it suddenly finished which is my biggest criticism of the movie. We are presented with much character development and even more comedy and coming off the back of a near perfect first entry to the series it is hard to live up to. It just felt like the writers ran out of time.

Iron Man 2 is not a perfect movie and is lesser than the first but does improve with subsequent viewings and given that we are now faced with a huge Marvel movie universe Iron Man 2 holds up well. We are introduced to Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow which can only be a good thing.