“It’s good to be back,” so says Tony Stark at the very beginning of the film. Well Tony, it’s good to have you back. Robert Downey Jr. reprises his iconic role of Tony Stark in Iron Man 2, which premieres today May 7th, 2010. Joining him in the reboot is the film’s director John Favreau, who also has a small part in the film, as well as Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell and of course Mickey Rourke as the villain Ivan Vanko. Not to mention, Samuel L Jackson has a small part as Nick Fury, the head of the Avengers.

Iron Man 2 has pop, attitude, action, and a strange feel of being an amusement park ride.  Perhaps the music that was used in the cut made me feel like that. It had that grandiose orchestra type music that you might find on “it’s a small world after all” in the Magic Kingdom.  It is clear that the cast had a ball making the film, and it shined through the screen. Downey’s performance of Stark is all you could possibly ask for. He has so much fun playing the part that I’m shocked he even breaks character in real life.  He is silky smooth playing the role, and makes every guy envious of Stark’s life.

The film begins where the original left off when Stark revealed he was Iron Man. This time however, it is the long lost business partner of Howard Stark (Tony’s father) and his son who have bone to pick with the Stark family. Rourke plays one mean looking Russian mad-scientist who is equally as smart as Stark but a lot stronger and crazier.  He is also tat’d from head to toe which adds to the spookiness.

I want to briefly address s couple things I really like about this film. First, Favreau does a great job of appealing to the science behind it all as he shoots some great sequences of Stark building a new suit as well as Rourke building a design of his own.  Another thing was that Terrence Howard’s part in the first was very replaceable. I really liked cool Don Cheadle in the role as Stark’s side kick. He is a bit more no BS badass than Howard.  Sam Rockwell is the perfect annoying, greedy, corporate sleaze ball who is so easy to dislike.  What surprised me most was that  Scarlett Johansson really did add something to this movie. Of course she’s beautiful, but her character was pretty cool and came ready to lay some goons down when asked to.

Some things I didn’t like about this movie was that the bad guy was pretty much another Iron Man, almost exactly like Jeff Bridges from the first one.  I was hoping for some new bad guy types. Another thing was the ongoing romance between Stark and Pepper Potts (Paltrow). I don’t want to spoil anything, but the ongoing secretive love between the two gets pretty annoying. You find yourself wanting to yell at the screen, “JUST TELL HER ALREADY.” However, this does not take away from the movie.

Overall Iron Man 2 is a great sequel. We often see overdone sequels in the comic book world where directors sacrifice substance for action. The original Iron Man was a perfect mix of a smart script, great acting and cool action. Iron Man 2 is not as smart as the first one, but it’s definitely a smart movie. Favreau makes a valiant effort to keep the substance there and I think he does a good job in that respect.  What’s really cool also about this movie is that the great actions scenes not only come from the big hero vs villain fights, but also come from smaller scenes as per the crazy laser beams Stark fires in his lab testing experiments and the now portable Iron Man suit Stark can use. Basically what I’m saying is that Iron Man 2 is a great way to kick off the Summer.

Make sure you stay past the credits – there is a special clip much like the first one

I give Iron Man 2 a ‘SEE IT’ rating