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So it's a good movie then?...
I am more than a little relieved, from the other reviews and a comment from a colleague who said (Iron Man 2 = Spiderman 3) it was lloking a bit grim!
Looks like you've got the review just about right Dr K. You can see past the action packed faults to the heart of the movie - the characters and their relationships. Favreau can do character driven stuff well, e.g Swingers (as you mentioned) is a fantastic movie. I shall look forward to seeing it now, having had the wind taken out of my sails from some other reviews.
Thankyou!

I think you've hit this film on the head, it presents decent characters but sidelines them too much for the sake of flashy effects and other less important stories concerning other less interesting characters. I thought the first outing was entertaining and had reasonable structure but this is very much a mess. Iron Man 2 = Transformers 2 in a way because in comparison to the first it feels too mixed up and not as well written. Mickey Rourke however was an excellent bad guy.

Dr K
Think your comments are more or less spot on. I have to say I really enjoyed it even as much as the first one. It's not without it's faults though with Rourke under used in my opinion, and lots of characters under developed and just thrown into the mix for sheer spectacle rather then effect. But for two hours of sheer rip roaring entertainment, with another little gem of a performance from the wonderful Mr Rockwell, I was prepared to over look some of the negatives. And boy does Downey Jr just gets better with age!

Dear Pepe and Popo,

Any chance you could block up that window up behind Mark, stick an Iron Man poster up perhaps? People going back and forth in the corridor and the two ronnies in the background were stealing all the limelight from the good doctors radio acting performance.

I do agree in most part with your comments however I feel that you also missed some of the movies subtler touches.
Tony stark's use of an early Captain America shield when creating a new element for example, not to mention the bonus scene after the credits!
The fact that this film is a stepping stone to Marvel's 2012 mega movie The Avengers has been totally over looked.
The reason that characters such as Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) are used sparingly are to tease us and keep us guessing for future movies. (Thor, Captain America and then The Avengers).
A geeky outlook on the film I know but one that needs mentioning! Keep it up Marvel Studios...

@chrishiggy:

The scenes of the captain's shield and Mr big man's hammer are surely not the 'subtler touches' you describe them as - they're BIG fan boy touches, and only of interest to people who are interested in the Marvel Universe rather than the film itself (see below)

I really enjoyed the whole cast - that little Robbie Jr was entertaining as always, Rourke was suitably menacing (when he wasn't "tinkering" in the lab), Paltrow managed to be palatable (always a suprise) and Scarlett Joggingbottoms was great fun. But Sam Rockwell stole the show for me, thought he was hilarious.

But despite the cast, some great one liners/banter, the film just didn't excite me as much as the first film. I think the reason being that, like what often happens in bad comics/tv episodes, too much time was spent building up plot for future episodes rather than focusing on the characters and chemistry of the cast.

If I was at the helms, I would have cut Sam Jackson's sub plot entirely and give more screen time to Mickey and RDJR, introduced Scarlett but not let her have her reveal until film 3 and have more ROBERT DOWNEY JUNIOR TIME

I kind of disagree - for me the film failed because it lacked the fan pleasing machismo of the first one. IM2 is missing a few more action scenes to balance out the more character led stuff the film is so obviously striving for (which as you say is fun but never quite gels). For example, the F1 section was nice but overall there is nothing like the reveal of the Mk1 suit to make me hop around in my seat like a 12 year old.

I so hate those Transformers sort of scenes: they're really treating their audience like 5 years old kids, aren't they!?
Anyway, thanks for pointing out about the lack of facial hair continuity... it gave me something to do during the dull scenes in the film.