Identity crisis.

If one thing really worked in Iron Man's favour, it was that, during the summer of 2008,  it provided a bright and breezy anti-thesis to the brooding intensity of The Dark Knight. Sure, it fell apart in the third act, but for the most part everything else neatly hung off Robert Downey Jr's sublime performance.

At first glance, it seems Iron Man 2 has taken heed of the scant criticisms leveled at its predecessor - the CGI suit looks more convincing; there are ample characters for Tony Stark to verbally spar with; and we've even got what seems to be a far more menacing villain in the shape of Mickey Rourke. Collective hands are swiftly rubbed together - this is shaping up nicely indeed. Let's light the touchpaper and stand well back.

And then... nothing. For at least twenty minutes, until we get a set-piece already trailered to shit and, annoyingly, overridden by Gwyneth Paltrow's shrieking. It's a problem that only swells as the movie progresses - to the point where the second act becomes turgid to sit through, due to the sheer lack of excitement. Director Jon Faverau and screenwriter Justin Theroux clearly want to have their Batman theme cake and eat it, as Stark mopes around under the onus that the world is just about to turn on him and his narcissism-fueled grasp is slipping away. There's a well-worn theory in screenwriting circles that act two is where the real fun and games kick off, but Iron Man 2 seems to have skipped that class all together. Instead, the mid-section of the movie is crushingly dull.

There was a fear that, by throwing more villains into the mix, the movie would wander into Spider-man 3 territory. It's an empty concern, as both Rourke (as Whiplash) and Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer are given so little to do that they barely register as an irritation, let alone severe global threat. While there's a real danger presented to Stark early on in the film, its dealt with far too easily to give any serious cause for concern. And when Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury finally shows up, his only purpose seems to be to provide a little exposition and plug the upcoming Avengers movie.

Faverau almost seems to be channeling Robert Altman (minus the smarts) in his handling of his cast, as they snark and bicker over the top of each other at increasing volume. From Downey Jr's smart-ass mouth it sounds fine, but the others struggle to keep up - and that's sympomatic of the film's overall problem. Stark is far too interesting a character to sit back and let others take over for prolonged periods, and when they do - and they do - the film languishes as we wait for him to reappear.

And to add further insult to injury, the climax feels somewhat rushed, giving Rourke and Rockwell no room to really breathe as the bad guys. There's no real poignancy or emotional depth to anything presented on-screen, leaving things feeling essentially at a status quo - which begs the question: what exactly was the point?

(125) Days of Summer...

... from April 30th to September 2nd, and I can count the movies I'm genuinely excited about on three fingers. That's right - the blockbuster bonanza kicks off even earlier this year (in the UK, at least) with Iron Man 2 opening on Thursday. And there's a strange whiff of the 1998s (Godzilla? Lost In Space? The Avengers?) about this year's line-up, with nary a tantalising prospect amongst them. Last week the Film Distributor's Association stated that there's no fear of dwindling receipts due to World Cup coverage - perhaps they haven't factored in the fact that nobody really gives a toss about this bumper crop of I-don't-give-a-rat's-ass pictures...

ROBIN HOOD (May 14)
This was, at one point, a fairly ingenious script that retold the Hood legend from the Sheriff of Nottingham's viewpoint. That was until ego-monster Russell Crowe came on board, first deeming himself to play both roles (hey, if it's good enough for Van Damme, right?), before relegating himself to the single character of Robin Hood and adding another generic telling of an already over-stuffed canon. To add insult to injury, we can't even expect Gladiator-style grue, on account of the tot-friendly PG-13 rating it's received.

PRINCE OF PERSIA (May 21)
"It's the new Pirates of the Caribbean!" touted the producers. "No! It's the new Mummy Returns!" replied the audiences, unimpressed with the dodgy accents, confusing SFX and garbled narrative evidenced in the trailer. It also seems to have glossed over the fact that the funnest part of the original game was making the Prince repeatedly fall down a hole and impale his bollocks on some spikes.

SEX AND THE CITY 2 (May 28)
Oh. Jesus. No.


SHREK FOREVER AFTER (Jul 2)
The fourth entry in a franchise that spluttered to a halt around five minutes into its second outing. Expect to be bludgeoned over the head with pop culture references that'll already be stale by the time you leave the cinema, and more braying Eddie Murphy-isms - the kind that keep lining his pockets so he can go off and make more films like Meet Dave. Kids will lap it up, but then kids are fucking stupid.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE (Jul 9)
This isn't the one where it all goes batshit insane. That's the next one. Instead, expect more mournful shoulder-lurching and sparkly bloodsuckers. A franchise crossover with the Blade series is already long overdue.


INCEPTION (Jul 16)
One of three reasons to actually make a trip to your local multiplex, this is just ticking boxes all over the place: Di Caprio; Nolan; eye-boggling special effects; Cottilard; Joseph Gordon-Levitt... Of course, it could end up being a redux of Minority Report by way of The Matrix Reloaded, but try to think positive here.

TOY STORY 3 (Jul 23)
And here's another one of those reasons, although Pixar's increasing dependency of sequels is becoming a concern.

THE A-TEAM (Jul 30)
Seen the trailer? Then you've already most likely seen all the best bits. I've heard rumblings that this is not-good-at-all...

GROWN UPS (Aug 6)
Adam Sandler? David Spade? Chris Rock? Kevin James? Rob Schneider? Sounds less like a summer event movie, and more like an endurance test brewed in the depths of Hell. Every time Sandler steps out of his comfort zone (Punch Drunk Love; Funny People), he leaps right back into it for another five years. As such, fuck 'im.

PREDATORS (Aug 13)
Oh, cool! A sequel / reboot / whatever to a franchise whose combined domestic gross was less than that of Scary Movie 4! Just what we always wanted! Some things genuinely belong in the 80s...

THE EXPENDABLES (Aug 20)
Speaking of which... What kind of crazy alternate universe did I step into, where people are genuinely excited by a movie toplined by Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren and Steve Austin? This is cynical nostalgia-pandering at its very worst, coupled with a trailer that makes it sound like it was penned by a six year-old with some crayons.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD (Aug 27)
And here's reason #3, although by the time it hits screens there's a good chance you'll have torched your local movie house in protest.

My advice? Seek out some of the smaller stuff doing the rounds this summer. There's re-releases of Five Easy Pieces, Rashomon and A bout de souffle on the cards, as well as new movies from Michael Winterbottom (The Killer Inside Me), Noah Baumbach (Greenberg) and Francis Ford Coppola (Tetro).

Or you could just watch the football. I know I probably will, and my national team didn't even qualify. Thanks a bunch, Hollywood.

Pedestrian crossing.

There's a moment early on into Cemetery Junction, the first big-screen collaborative offering from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, where one of the characters remarks that another should stop listening to "poofs like Vaughn Williams" (straight) and put on "some Elton John" (less straight, but this is 1973 after all) instead. That's about as sharp as the gags get here - winking "oh it's so ironic" nods to stuff that seemed almost innocent back then - house prices; dinner-table racism; sexual politics. Unfortunately, they're handled with all the subtlety of a brick.

Let's put aside my ire at the hypocrisy of Gervais two years ago dismissing the British film industry - only to reappear after two commercial flops with his first British feature. It's hard to find the "glorious England" Gervais has been flapping his mouth about during his promotion of Cemetery Junction - his depiction of early-70s Reading is neither the bleak landscape his characters seem so desperate to escape from; nor is it wholly the rose-tinted nostalgic lane that its (admittedly fabulous) soundtrack suggests.

Instead, our three protagonists (The Handsome One; The Angry One; The Dorky One) mill around, perpetrating such minor offences as a couple of bar brawls and painting a cock on a billboard. The central hook is that The Handsome One - having somehow wangled a job as an insurance salesman - suffers a rude awakening upon realising that the idyllic life of his superiors might not be for him, and that instead his heart lies alongside the adventurous fantasies of The Boss's Daughter (who is, in turn, engaged to A Bit Of A Prick).

Character names are irrelevant here - everyone is painted with such broad archetypal strokes from the get-go that literally nothing surprising happens for the duration. If you've seen even a couple of movies in your lifetime, then you can plot out every single arc within the first five minutes. Cemetery Junction is, sadly, that predictable. That's not to say the movie doesn't hold a few charms - there's an inspired sing-a-long to Slade at a corporate function; and the central trio make for a believable (if dull) little clique.

Gervais and Merchant clearly want this film to be Reading's answer to Barry Levinson's Diner, or any other number of "we've gotta get out of this place" pictures of that ilk. Unfortunately, the obstacles presented to the main characters seem almost inconsequential - a key plot thread that's been slowly building throughout is simply ignored come the climax - that it's hard to really care. They're all gainfully employed; they're reasonably successful with the ladies; and even the local bobby seems to like them. They're hardly struggling from the outset.

Performance-wise, nobody really rises above adequate (and with a cast supported by the likes of Ralph Fiennes and Matthew Goode, that's not good enough), with one brilliant, shining exception - Emily Watson. Delivering more emotional nuance in a single glance than the rest of the cast can muster for the duration, she's tragically underused - but when she gets her moments, she uses them to once again prove she's one of the greatest, most oft-underrated actress working today.

Gervais and Merchant have bragged ceaselessly about how many movie offers they've turned down since finishing up Extras. It's a shame, then, that the one project they chose to go with feels more like a Screen One drama (with some added use of the word "cunt") than anything as cinematic as they'd hoped to deliver. Must try harder.