Iron Man 2 (2010)

The second Iron Man film is much better than the first one but that's because the first film was just laying down the rules of the franchise. It sees Mickey Rourke, gets annoyed that Robert Downey Jr's dad stole his dads idea or something like that. Basically it gives the film a chance to do what it wanted to but couldnt in the first one because it had to lay down the rules of the franchise and that is just have several spectacular action sequences. The first being a good one to start with and that is the one at Monaco.

Whilst I enjoyed the action sequences which one would expect from an action film, it was the casting choices that made me enjoy this film. RDJ was on good form again and is proving to be a strong screen prescene. Gwyneth Paltrow was marginally better but I still see her more as Chris Martin's wife than an actress which is a shame. Don Cheadle's casting in this film was purely because Rhodes was more involved in this film and they must have thought that Terence Howard wouldnt have been able to pull it off. That said I thought that he did well. Sam Rockwell was brilliant in this, I am a fan of his and thought that his baddie was a bit more restrained than that of Jeff Bridges. Scarlett Johannson serves a eye candy role in this film. It was time to play 'lets see how long it takes us to get her into a skintight catsuit'. Not convinced. However the most bizarre piece of casting was for that of Mickey Rourke. It's ok when he not talking but when he has to utter any words then that horrible russian accent comes out and the threat is ruined.

Iron Man 2 is a much better film that Iron Man 1. I liked the bit at the end where Thor's hammer appears in the ground. Must get round to watching Thor.

Iron Man (2008)

The first Iron Man movie is the most blatant attempt to lay down the ground rules for a franchise. Having watched the Avengers movie, I had some high hopes for this first outing for Robert Downey Jr. The film starts off as Starkey being in an unnamed middle east country and is attacked and asked to build a version of his weapon but ends up building a suit to escape and works on building a new one when he gets home but the bad guys (including Jeff Bridges) get hold of the old suit and use it.

The film was highly enjoyable. Every time RDJ appears on screen I was having fun because he is a good screen prescene. When Gwenth was on screen I was less intersted because she is not a particuarly good actress. Jeff Bridges is obviously a baddie from the moment that she appeared on screen as he bald and had a beard and was quite an effective baddie.

The first half of the film does a good job of setting the reason why Starkey is the way he is and its nice how he changes his views and when people try to get him to go back to his old ways he refuses. The action sequences were very well realised and I didnt find it boring at all.

This film is highly enjoyable and I am now looking forward to the second one which I have got on DVD.