The Outsider
Member
Totally don't agree with the bolded despite agreeing with many of your other points.
The birthday scene is sort of the climax of that subplot. There's even a little scene with ScarJo just to hit you over the head with it ("What would you do if you knew this was your last birthday?"). The fight with War Machine was my favorite action scene in the movie because (on top of the cool holy-shit-we're-wrecking-a-billion-dollar-house destruction) both characters have clear motivations and are on roughly equal footing for believable reasons (Rhodey's just finding his legs in the suit, Stark's plastered). I like that whole sequence a lot except for the shooting the glass wall and having the crowd react all WOOOOOOO. I would've been fucking terrified at that moment.
I haven't seen it in a while, so what you guys are saying makes sense. I'll be rewatching it soon enough, so I might be inclined to agree with you guys here. I think I just felt the whole scene with War Machine and Drunk Tony fighting after the party was odd. Robot Rock was cool, I guess.