There has been a tendency to depict the successes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as the triumph of some underdog over the sneers of critical and industry opinion, but what I remember is that the entertainment press was fully on board with the project as claqueurs from the start, certainly to go by the rapturous response to the first Iron Man back in 2008.* Indeed, Hiram Lee was an extreme rarity in not just calling the film "dreadful and dishonest" but remarking the hyperbolic cheer-leading of his colleagues, naming and quoting several of them (from A.O. Scott to David Ansen to Peter Travers) as testimony not just to the political sensibility of the profession's mainstream, but "the wretched state of so-called film criticism with which we are presently plagued" where its artistic standards are concerned. "It is remarkable to observe a critic praising filmmakers for creating generic and two-dimensional characters," Lee wrote in regard to one of these.
Fifteen summers later nothing has changed there.
* For what it is worth Iron Man's Rotten Tomatoes score is 94 percent, making it clear that Lee's remarks testify quite accurately to the critics' enthusiasm (whether one agrees with Lee's appraisal of the film or not).
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