The critics are right: Iron Man 2 just isn’t as good as the original. It’s got nothing to do with the traditional pitfalls for a big budget sequel, however. The villain, while not especially good, still beats Jeff Bridges in the first movie. The challenge of coming to terms with being merely one among many super-powered (Or super-geared. Or super-trained. Whatever) people in the world is as interesting as the original challenge of coming to terms with having those powers in the first place and accepting the concomitant responsibilities.
Iron Man 2 lacks interest because it overplays Tony Stark’s abrasive personality. In the original Iron Man, Stark was a complex and compelling character. Yes, he was impulsive and narcissistic, and therefore a thorough jerk towards anyone who he wasn’t immediately interested in. But he also had charm. Not the shallow, callow charm he shovels at the ladies—that’s just more narcissism—but the charm of being both truly gifted at and truly devoted to his art. Stark lives to create engineering miracles. We see him doing so in his stint as a hostage, again as he crafts the suit, and again when he jury-rigs the tools he needs to triumph in the big climax. Like Sherlock Holmes between cases or Fitzgerald between novels, he acts up between engineering projects because the world can’t keep up with him, and he gets bored. We forgive Stark his callowness because he does truly care about something besides himself, and forgive his egotism because he proves he can deliver when a challenge worthy of his talent appears. The audience (and critics) loved him for it. More than the rest of the film, in fact.
But somewhere along the production process to the sequel, somebody decided, “Hey, people like Stark’s personality! That was the big sell. So let’s magnify that and hang the whole movie on it.†End result: Stark in Iron Man 2 is all jerk, all the time. He has a minute or two of crafting something, but it’s merely a brief, pro forma reminder of his origin story. Stark simply finds, with a big, big hint from Nick Fury, daddy’s coded instructions for making unobtainium and does so. He doesn’t figure anything out; he doesn’t sacrifice for his art; he just follows others’ instructions so the suit will no longer poison him. So there’s a quick shot of him shooting an energy beam into his chest doohickey, just to end up where he was an entire film ago. And even in this brief sequence, he manages to heap verbal and professional abuse on the federal agent guarding him.
As I say, all jerk, all the time.
The unredeemed asshole isn’t an engaging character in the first place; it certainly isn’t interesting enough to allow Stark’s personality prop up the whole movie, which the script seeks to do.
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