Iron Man - Episode 2

I think it's fair to say that the first episode of Iron Man was underwhelming to put it politely, but at least with what little introductions were required out of the way perhaps this second instalment can impress a little more?

Come the start of this episode, we find Tony Stark under suspicion of smuggling plutonium into the country, with news that some of said radioactive material has gone missing while of course his company's plans for a new, clean energy source also requires plutonium to operate.  Hmm, not quite so environmentally friendly and completely clean then, is it?

Anyhow, after giving an ambiguous testimony to the Japanese parliament (I thought you were trying to get the populace to like you, Tony?) Mr. Stark goes off to investigate what's been going on for himself, visiting a ship transporting some plutonium as Iron Man only to find that it's been stolen by another of Zodiac's generic robot minions.  What follows is a race to retrieve the plutonium by Tony Stark, as he pursues the inevitable men in black involved in its transport in a car chase that ends with a huge tank with stealth capabilities (although really Tony, you could still have shot at it, as it was blatantly obvious it was still exactly where it was before it disappeared) and naturally involves young female reporter Nanami Ota in a comical mix-up of camera equipment and weapons grade nuclear material.  Oh, how we laughed.

Although this second episode was admittedly an improvement upon the first, that still isn't really saying much - apart from the continued use of horrible and needless transitions between scenes on occasion, the entire episode feels hopelessly sterile with car chases and action scenes that deliver almost zero tension or excitement, even when you add to show's half-hearted background machinations to proceedings.  Now, as I noted last time around I haven't seen either of the live-action Iron Man movies, but surely there's more to it than this?  Right now I couldn't care less what happens to Tony Stark, stupid reporter girl or... well, the entirety of Japan, quite honestly.  This remains a pretty poor showing when you consider everything that it could have been.