Barely made it to the ending (my wife didn't)

Rating: 2/10 (17 June 2009)

I must be out of touch with modern pop culture because I have no idea how people can spend 2 hours watching movies like this, and the flood of top ratings and positive reviews on this site make this all the more mysterious. I was even more surprised that several friends and neighbors highly recommended the movie. So, my curiosity piqued, I watched it. Perhaps this negative bias overly influenced my reaction.
Maybe it would have helped if I had been an avid fan of the comic book -- that seems to be necessary to accept the absurd back story. But I found the plot, story, characters, and cinematography to be unbearably predictable and far-fetched. I realize the movie is supposed to provide some indulgent escapism. But setting it in Afghanistan ruined this for me, which forced me to think about the terrible realities there. Setting it in a fictitious city like Gotham would have helped.
Iron Man has a lot in common with Spiderman (not to mention the long list of formula superhero adaptations before it), but I enjoyed that movie much more, as it had a much more plausible human side, and a humble super hero main character is much more palatable to me than the smarmy Robert Downey Jr. who acted like he needed a good paddling.
Despite a lot of dozing off and eye-rolling, the highlight in the movie for me was Gwyneth Paltrow, who is not only cute but did a marvelous job of acting the conflicted role of Stark's better half, and somehow didn't look ridiculous walking over piles of broken glass in 4 inch heels.
Perhaps it is a comment on our culture that enormous sums of money are spent making and watching movies like this? Do we truly have nothing better to do with our collective time?