The Sequels would get it right

Rating: 5/10 (27 December 2019)

Considering this was the very first one out, that they had no finished script, that there were fights over the budget, that the visual effects had to be scaled back, and the inclusion of Downey was considered as a stunt - it's a testament to Downey and Favreau that the movie got finished as well as it did.
But it's still pretty boring and ordinary. The sequels would do better.
Gripe #1: The CGI work is pretty static, that is, two dimensional. Pixar and other studios had already released movies where the camera is not bound to any object in the 3 dimensional world. Iron Man 3 would fly way, way beyond this with the help of WETA.
Gripe #2: For so much emphasis being placed on the "science", the science is pretty stiff. Starks home made computer is about as impressive as a cardboard box, and what was that crap about being Summa Cum Laude at MIT? MIT doesn't engage in that kind of foolishness. If you got accepted to MIT, you're already at that level.
The science was the one place they could have dazzled us. They decided to play it safe. The third Iron Man movie is the vastly superior one.