[quote name='Brak']They were too cowardly to make Tony Stark an alcoholic, and the screenplay could have easily been adapted, untouched, into a FOX Kids cartoon.
Vanilla, Spielberg-like direction, as well.[/QUOTE]
From what I know about Stark and Iron Man, he doesn't develop his alcoholism until awhile after he begins his Iron Man career. Being an origin movie, I can understand why they left it out. From what I've read, they plan (and I hope so too) to touch on some of the darker themes in the second movie.
I have no problem with the movie being "lighter" than say Dark Knight (which I had a lot of problems with), the movie still had (mostly) good action and a mature enough storyline.
As far as the direction, do you mean the acting or the action sequences? The last action sequence in particular probably could've used better direction, it felt disjointed and disappointing to me, but still passable. As far as the acting, when I first heard Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, I thought it was perfect, and it mostly was. Gwenyth Paltrow is whatever, servicable as Pepper Potts and I thought Jeff Bridges was great as Obediah. Terrence Howard though as Rhodes was TERRRRIBLE.
The movie still has its problems, but the hate isn't warranted.