Incredibly Disappointing and Actually Quite Frustrating

Rating: 4/10 (6 May 2013)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe. So far, it has been nothing short of spectacular. From Iron Man to the Avangers, all of these movies had nothing to hate and a lot to love for me as a long time Marvel fan.
So what's going on here?
When I wrote my gut reaction review on my blog, I was in pure HATE mode for this movie. Seeing the big "twist" in this movie really stuck in my craw, and I'm pretty sure that came through in my words.
In fact, just the Mandarin twist itself was enough to turn my feelings inside out for the whole movie, especially the end sequence. That was when I asked myself over and over again: THIS guy is the Mandarin?
However, upon second viewing the movie has revealed itself to be not AS bad as I thought before. there is some quality acting here, especially by Downey, and Kingsley looked AND SOUNDED like a truly intimidating terrorist (pre reveal, anyway).
However, I still think there was WAY too much comedy here. And not too mention the fact that many could have done without the kid sidekick thing, although it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have turned out.
Still, I expected and really wanted to see Tony Stark versus the Mandarin, as the trailers promised. I was expecting something darker than the previous two. What I got was a buddy cop kid film with potentially awesome ideas that ended up getting screwed up.
Are the rest of the Phase 2 movies going to be like this? Thor 2 looks promising, but then again, so did this one.