Much like the popcorn served at the AMC concession stand, so is this movie: crunchy, yet way too rich in salt, which serves a twofold: disguising any staleness, and increase thirst so the customer purchases more soda... Iron Man 2 delivers plenty of salt in the form of effects and action, way too plenty, which is to say, you feel stuffed quickly and quite thirsty... It sports a line of actors who are capable of so much more than what they are given to deliver. In short, this second installment suffers from a poor script and from mediocre direction (not entirely the fault of the director as there is just so much you can do with popcorn that was already salted to death). Unlike additional installments of some other comics e.g. Spiderman, Batman, who aimed higher in terms of exploring some emotional depths of the main character, or strove to feature a darker corner of the villain in a fresh way (so well delivered by the late Heath Ledger in Dark Night), Iron Man 2 aims at practically nothing, a surprise when it comes to the amount of firepower featured in the film. But then again, maybe it’s trying to follow as a motto a line delivered by a sub-character on the villain side in the movie, who bluntly states that bigger is better...