Early Review Pans Iron Man 2

“Well, that didn't take long. Everything fun and terrific about Iron Man, a mere two years ago, has vanished with its sequel.” So begins Kirk Honeycutt’s review of Iron Man 2 in The Hollywood Reporter—one of the first reviews of the film, which opens Friday. Honeycutt derides the movie as “noise, confusion, multiple villains, irrelevant stunts and misguided story lines.” He says that “What made the original film so, well, original, was the notion of a superhero as a conflicted individual with enough complexes and mental crises that saving the planet became a sort of stress-relief valve. Now he's borderline psychotic.” Furthermore, nothing really feels at stake in the film: The plot does not revolve around saving the world; rather, it’s about the competition over a Department of Defense contract, Honeycutt says.