Iron Man 3 (2013)

When Tony Stark's world is torn apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, he starts an odyssey of rebuilding and retribution.

A quick synopsis:

The man with the biggest ego in the world has had it humbled by the events in New York. He's no longer a big fish in a small pond, he's a small fish in a huge pond and he doesn't know how to deal.

Tony and Pepper are in an official committed relationship, but he's a jerk and spends all of his time working on the suits.

His main villains (this film) are Aldrich Killian creator of the Extremis Technology and his number one arch enemy, The Mandarin.

In Iron Man 3, we get to see Tony Stark vs villains. Tony Stark the man as opposed to Iron Man the hero. Does the armor make the man, or does the man make the armor and other questions of that ilk are central to this film. Brace yourselves folks, there is a lot more existential drama in this one.

Sigh. I'm not going to say that Iron Man 3 completely sucked. But it was a dud in my opinion and totally shit the bed in the grand scheme of things. It was as if they glanced at the comics and built a story around certain concepts and completely disregarded their origins. They basically took everything that made the first movie a good comic book film and bastardized it in favor of an overblown big budget studio film. (Like part 2)

Just so you don't think I'm talking out of my ass, here's a list:

Anxiety - In Iron Man 3, we get to witness the battle of the century as Tony Stark battles... anxiety. Yes folks, He's - maybe for the first time ever-unsure of himself due to the events in New York and this manifests itself as panic attacks. ALTHOUGH HE WAS THE ONE WHO HAD THE BIG FUCKING HERO MOMENT AND SAVED THE WORLD!!!

The Mandarin - The Mandarin was basically a puppet created by and used exclusively to further the white man's agenda. Because why?

Are you seriously going to tell me that Iron Man's greatest villain was reduced to this bullshit? Did you need to swerve your audience? That is some real and true bullshit. I figured something was up when Ben Kingsley was cast and not, you know, an actual Asian.

Could be worse I guess, at one point, Tony Stark's main villain was alcoholism.

Iron Patriot - War machine now works for the US government and has been rebranded as the Iron Patriot. (Comic book fans man recognize this as the death of the dream of the Civil War storyline, as marvel doesn't own the rights to Norman Osbourne.)

Pepper Potts - Gwyneth Paltrow has always sucked. Now she sucks AND has super powers?

Exposition via kid - I hate when movies rely on forced exposition in the form of a child. Tony was a complete jerk to this kid. He deserved it though. Smug bastard.

Extremis - A marvel of technology. Wireless, fluid, electric and involving nanotechnology if I remember correctly. In this movie it makes you burn super hot and apparently leads to:

Fire Breath - Aldrich Killian has successfully mastered the Extremis tech. As such, he can also breath fire.

The Ending - The film fucking ended with the dude basically throwing away the character. And then saying, "I am Iron Man."

*deep breath* 

YOU CAN'T BE IRON MAN WITHOUT THE FUCKING SUIT!!! 

I would love to give this a 1 out of pure nerd rage. But comic nerds weren't the primary audience. They never are. Putting that aside, I really really really want to say that it was good. At times, It felt like it wanted to be, but ultimately Iron Man 3 did just enough to earn a two.

 

Violence? Yes
Explosions? Yes
Nudity? No