10 Terrible Movies Everyone Goes Way Too Easy On

7. Iron Man 2

In a world where a Guardians Of The Galaxy movie is a thing, it's hard to think of a time when Marvel wasn't a name with similar connotations to Pixar or Star Wars. But before the comic/movie giant's acquisition by Disney in 2009 their film arm wasn't as dominant as it is post-Avengers.

Take the one that started it all. For all its Downey Jr. wisecracking and that tense opening thirty minutes, the first Iron Man is actually very typical superhero filmmaking. Good, entertaining filmmaking, but typical all the same (particularly when compared to The Dark Knight, which was released mere months later). It's fair to say it took a few goes for the company to escape mediocrity, but when they did many of their overlooked earlier films (Thor is a strong example here) improved in retrospect. Unfortunately some were dragged up when they shouldn't have been. We're looking at you Iron Man 2.

Put simply, Iron Man 2 is an utter mess. Swinging from Michael Bay-esque fetishism of military hardware to sloppy universe building, then sidestepping to give a little bit of time to a severely bloated plot that has no narrative conclusion, it feels like a primitive blockbuster made up on-the-fly. Likely stemming from a lack of direction at Marvel (head honcho Kevin Feige has stated at this point in the MCU's development they weren't sure what was coming more than a movie ahead), it stumbles along in people's memories thanks to introducing Black Widow and having an extended cameo from Nick Fury. It only goes to prove that putting Samuel L. Jackson in your film really does boost it in the public eyes.