Originally scored this a 5 (five!) when I watched this 11 years ago. I don't know why I was so harsh on it, I think it had a lot to do with not liking Mickey Rourke as the villain with his electric whips, or the army of drones that were too similar to Iron Man's suit, or even Sam Rockwell as an antagonist. For sure I was deeply disappointed (and to some degree still am) that Terrence Howard was replaced as Rhodes- but I appreciate Don Cheadle's take on the role. Maybe my expectations were just too high and I wanted a grittier follow up to Iron Man. Whatever the case may be, I just watched it again for the first time in 11 years (as I am watching all the MCU films in MCU timeline order) and I really enjoyed this film. The character development, the character interaction, the introduction of Black Widow, the early Nick Fury appearance, the humor... all in retrospect, this is actually a pretty good installment. And after I watched the deleted and alternate scenes, I got a great appreciation for the editor and director for leaving those scenes on the cutting room floor- it was a good call because those scenes would have negatively impacted the pacing, or been over the top with the corniness.