Iron Man 2

Once upon a time in Hollywood, there was an actor whose father was a movie director. The actor gained acclaim and star billings, then became a drug addict and a Hollywood has-been. Meanwhile, another top-rated Hollywood actor acquired a drinking problem and a tarnished reputation. In the fairy-tale realm that insiders still like to think Hollywood is, Robert Downey Jr and Mickey Rourke arose from the ashes of their self-destructed careers and were given lead roles in Iron Man 2.

That is one of the film's few positive aspects. Another is the vertically-challenged Mr Downey's successful attempt to grow older more gracefully than his lookalike and apparent role model, Dustin Hoffman.

The first screen version of the Marvel comic character presented a sweet acid-tongued anti-hero, an Iron Man whose stylishness and impregnable suit of armour fitted Downey neatly. Gwyneth Paltrow, another child of Hollywood parents, swapped verbal jabs with him, sweetly, as his assistant. The SFX were fun, director Jon Favreau had crafted an above-average blockbuster franchise, and a second serving of the cartoon capers seemed welcome.

The welcome was very short-lived. Too quickly, it was apparent why the production team decided to give all credit for the script to only one name, Justin Theroux. He is the designated fall guy for an overly complex plot packed with sloppy coincidences, story details filched from other cartoon epics, embarrassingly lame comic efforts, ho-hum SFX and cardboard characterisations.

Downey preens and pouts. Paltrow's face and body languages indicate acute ennui. Rourke sends himself up as a toothpick-chewing Russian with banal dialogue and an inborn genius for applied physics, just like the iron Man. Sam Rockwell arrives on the scenery too, to chew it, as a supposedly villainous arms manufacturer whose preenery and pouting may be intended to counterpoint the Iron Man's.

Meanwhile, Don Cheadle has returned as an unimposingly small army bigwig whose motives are inexplicable. Black movie-goers are apparently expected to flock to their local cineplexes to also greet Samuel L. Jackson's unexplained appearance as yet another humourless comic villain. There's a sarcastic senator, of course, and a plump middle-aged male side-kick.

"We need another female role model!", the team must have screeched. It sketched out a plotline on which to pose Scarlett Johansson as a secret government agent. The team decided that it was be kindest to not wake her up during the movie's production, since her only memorable scenes were to be created by an editor wielding a cute pair of scissors.

Two of the pun-ishing efforts to amuse dirty-minded schoolboys are worth listening out for. They involve hemorrhoids and little pricks. By the way, Downey's Iron Man talks a lot, and a lot of pseudo-earnest rubbish, probably so that schoolboys can call him the Ironic Maniac.

Why was the film released overseas a week ahead of North America? That's usually a sign of a lack of confidence by the distributors. I do hope it proves to be one sign of marketing intelligence attached to this Marvel movie mishap.