'Iron' tough: Robert Downey Jr. is back, battling bad guy Mickey Rourke in sequel

IRON MAN IS pushed to the brink of death in "Iron Man 2," but that's not the scariest thing in the movie.

Much more terrifying is this: the U.S. senator from Pennsylvania is Garry Shandling. And by the looks of things, he chairs the subcommittee on Botox and chemical peels.

Shandling is an adversary in "I2" to billionaire playboy inventor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) - the senator wants Stark's Iron Man suit classified as a weapon and placed in the hands of the Defense Department and a sleazy contractor (Sam Rockwell).

If someone had told you, say, 10 years ago, that guys like Downey, Shandling and Rockwell would be headlining a Hollywood comic-book tentpole project like "Iron Man," under the direction of erstwhile Swinger Jon Favreau, you'd have thought them goofy.

But that's how the "Iron Man" franchise rolls - it's kind of the anti-Michael Bay blockbuster. Special-effects battles among robotic creatures are kept to a merciful minimum, and instead of Josh Duhamel and Megan Fox vying to deploy the movie's most vapid stare, you get folks like Downey, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle (and Samuel L. Jackson in "2") batting around improvised dialogue, distracting us from the apparently improvised plot.

Who better, in such a context, to play the headlining guest star villain than Mickey Rourke? With a Russian accent!

Rourke is Anton Vanko, son of a disgraced Russian physicist who claims to have invented Iron Man's unique power source, an invention stolen from him by Stark's father Howard.

Vanko takes dad's old blueprints and builds his own creaky version of the Iron Man suit, a hydraulic, skeletal thing with big electric whiplash tendrils that cut metal like butter, and sets out to avenge his family.

Vanko's claims of theft are new to Stark, who investigates, prompting "I2" to examine Stark's relationship with his own father - a man presented as an amusing amalgamation of Howard Hughes and Walt Disney. We see him, reedy mustache and tweedy suit, in old promo film, touting a steadfast belief in technology, standing in front of a model of a World of Tomorrow village.

Stark's ambiguous regard for dad, for his '50s optimism and his American belief in the power of technology, is meant to reflect our own. And Stark's birthright, an endless capacity for innovation in his USA DNA, is meant to be his salvation.

The franchise's bounce and lightness make it unique among recent comic book adaptations, which have leaned increasingly toward heavy, dreary themes they don't have the dramatic weight to support (three-hour director's cut of "The Watchmen," anyone?).

On the other had, "I2" can't totally escape the handicaps of big-time commercial entertainment - endless Audi product placement, and the classic rock soundtrack, which at least includes "The Clash," so it could be worse.

Stay tuned through the final credits for a peek at what awaits in "Iron Man 3."