Iron Man 2 Review Part two

Now that we've gotten the new characters out of the way, we have to deal with the returning cast. First off, we have Tony Stark, Iron Man himself. Since the last movie, he has gone about bringing forth world peace, most likely by taking care of terrorist cells, or some other jibber jabber. We never find out how exactly he "privatized world peace", we're just told he did and have to deal with it. His major problem in this film is keeping the Iron Man suit out of the military's hands as well as coming up with a solution to the palladium poisoning he's come down with since sticking that night light in his chest. This has lead to more reckless behavior on his part, though that really only amounts to being a dick to Senator Stern, driving in that race in Monaco, and operating the suit while intoxicated, which hardly seems as risky as fighting terrorists by himself. Maybe it was more "a danger to the rest of society" thing that had everyone else worried. Any way, Robert Downey JR. once again brings his A game to this performance. The only fault I can seem to find is that he might have been to big of a dick, but that's what's expected of him. So I suppose we should move on to his co-stars, Terrence Howard. I mean Don Cheadle!
James Rhodes in this movie gets much more screen time, as he should. The build up from the first part is satisfying, though the true War Machine armor is only used near the end, during the final battle. But I must say, he wears the Mark II well, but then again, it's only his face in what I'm sure is a whole lot of CGI. But out of the suit, he's still a terrific character, though again, little development. I really cannot emphasis how often characters in this movie are just left as basic skeleton characters.
As a matter of fact, the one who got the most proportional development to his screen time was Happy Hogan, Tony's chauffeur. Played by director Kevin Favreu, he goes from a cameo to a full blown character in this one. And he's probably one of the most sympathetic characters. Thogh you can't spell sympathetic without pathetic. I'm not sure what's happening with this character in the comics now, but I read the original comics he was the only other person to have piloted to Iron Man suit, though it's been a while since I've read them, so maybe I'm making him up to be a bigger character than he is. But in this? There isn't a scene where he isn't getting thrown around. It's just a little sad for me to see this guy go from married to Pepper (one of the few things I do know about current Happy) to what basically amounts to comic relief. I suppose I should talk about her, but I don't really have much to say about Pepper. She's the same character as before, only now she's dating Tony and is the new CEO of Stark industries. I don't know, maybe I'm just bad at noticing personalities in humans, but you probably notice a pattern developing when I talk about these people.
While we're on the topic of cameos being developed (too late) Samuel L. Jackson returns from the credits in the last movie as Colonel Nicholas Fury, director of SHIELD, and all around bad ass. People were glad to see him in the first movie, and they sure as hell were ecstatic to see him in this one. He serves as a general Deus ex Machina, giving Tony the necessary stuff to keep him from being dead and slap the stupid out of him, metaphorically speaking, of course. Again, just another character there to set up the big party in 2012. Take him or leave him, though I suggest taking him. I suppose that covers all the characters, though I'm sure I missed some gripe points. In short, maybe Hogan was a sort of self insert by the director, though I doubt this, and Black Widow and Fury only acted as Fan service, in as many senses of the word as possible. I guess that leaves me to discuss the plot, though I think that might be taboo for movie reviewers. I mean, it's not like I can discuss emotion or pacing or anything! I'm an amateur. I just know how to state facts as they are, and what my opinion on those facts are. But then again, what is a movie without characters, and since I've already covered all of them, I suppose I can call it a wrap. Do I have to put a score down now?