Although I quite agree with your critique, I feel that the audio somewhat detracts from my ability own ability to understand your arguments completely. You do present, explain, and rationalize your points well, but maybe I am too used to reading text than comprehending spoken word when I am personally attempting to challenge each argument as they are presented. I dont want to discredit your critique, but I have to admit that a transcript would have been more enjoyable.

That being said, I have not seen IM2, and have no plans to do so. I thought the first was just a giant stroke to each responsible party’s ego, without a strong nor sensible plot. From what I have gathered, the second seems not to have deviated from this highly profitable formula. It appears that the most lucrative selling point for the Iron Man series is Tony Stark, which I believe to be a hyper-masculine, egotistical twat, and I frankly don’t care about his personal struggles. Coupled with the fact that any issues I hope he could manage to resolve remain unaffected leave me wanted a lot more from this so-called “man.” I know I’m being a bit harsh on a clearly Summer movie-fest flick, but there are some things I expect to see in movies and some things I expect to see in movies worthy of enduring praise. The IronMan series fits far more strongly into the ‘SPECIAL F-X AR KOOL!’ category than the ‘I slaved over my script’s drafts to examine my character’s beliefs before I attempted to understand their motivations’ effort. I am a minority in valuing things like character motivation, I know. I just hoped that this years biggest films might offer some resolve for people like me.