The Single Biggest Mistake Each MCU Film Has Made
2. Iron Man 2: Studio Interference
The Movie:
A rare dud for the MCU, this is a stunningly boring and superficial sequel. With tedious drama, subdued performances and literally only two action scenes in the whole thing, it's lucky this didn't completely destroy goodwill towards the franchise.
Iron Man 2's best points of comparison are The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (a superior film to this, which shows just how bad Iron Man 2 really was) and Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. It's a superhero movie that doesn't care about entertainment or its characters; rather, it just wants to sell a cinematic universe to you.
You go to the cinema and have to sit through 20 minutes of adverts and trailers, only to get a feature-length advert for something that's still ages away from release. What a waste of ten quid.
Robert Downey Jr., Jon Favreau, Mickey Rourke and others have expressed dissatisfaction with Iron Man 2 and studio interference has been blamed for the film's weakness. This makes a lot of sense.
It's a movie without any forward momentum, it's full of underdeveloped characters and subplots (especially regarding Mickey Rourke's villain) and the links to The Avengers feel shoe-horned in. It's a film with too many conflicting visions and any superhero movie which prioritizes sequel-building over any actual action was always going to fail.
Overall, a terrible waste of potential.
Fix:
Let the hugely talented and capable cast and crew do their own thing and include the Avengers set-up, but do it more subtly.