Review of Iron Man 3 (2013) by Freddylives99 — 26 Jun 2017

“Iron Man 3” is my most hated superhero movie. This big-budget joke failed on every level. First of all, this wasn’t made for Marvel fans, it was made by Shane Black, for Shane Black. Mr. Black took everything fans loved about the Iron Man franchise and threw them out the window.

Even AC/DC and Black Sabbath got the boot, in favor of Christmas music (?). A new director doing his own thing with a franchise can sometimes work, with Logan being a great example, but this was a poor attempt to try and stand out.

Let’s get right into the twist with The Mandarin. Iron Man’s greatest villain from the comics is reduced to a joke. He’s an actor playing a villain, and we’re all supposed to laugh, but it’s insulting.

No other Marvel movie has done this since. A short film called “All Hail the King” was made to retcon this, but it was too late, the damage had been done. How could Marvel Studios have allowed this to happen? Iron Patriot was a major letdown as well, he doesn’t get to do anything! He flies towards an enemy hideout, and you expect a great action sequence, but then it’s a fake-out.

Shane Black loves surprises that disappoint. Now let’s talk about the title character. In “The Avengers”, Steve Rogers tells Tony that he’s nothing without his suit, so he spends most of this movie proving Cap wrong, which is just boring.

One scene has him make an explosive out of a Christmas ornament. Are you kidding me?! Where’s the superhero stuff?! When you go to an Iron Man film, you pay money to see Tony Stark in his suit, but he’s hardly in it at all.

The suit he does wear comes to him in pieces, which ends up being problematic, but he has so many better suits anyway, so sticking with that model makes no sense. What also doesn’t make sense is telling a terrorist group where he lives, then doing nothing to prepare for an attack.

So Tony spends most of his time fighting fire-breathing people who all wear flame-resistant clothes with an annoying child sidekick and a suit that doesn’t work right… when he has an army of Iron Man suits that can be used at any time.

Tony destroys those extremely helpful suits, by the way, just to give the audience a firework spectacle. Hooray??? Oh, and Pepper Potts fights the lame real villain, because we all wanted to see that, of course.

The only shred of a good idea I could find was giving Tony PTSD from his near-death experience in “The Avengers”, but this is handled in such an awkward way. He will be reminded of the Battle of New York, usually by a kid for some reason, and have just a mild panic attack.

It could have been left out, but I thought it was almost a nice touch. Almost. Acknowledging The Avengers was a mistake, because no one else from that team or S.H.I.E.L.D responds when the President of the United States is captured.

Did they really have to have that? Was it so hard to make a film about a villain with power-rings that can do interesting and creative things? Apparently so. In conclusion, this puts a big 3 on a beloved franchise, yet gives you nothing you paid to see the movie for.

It’s too boring, has too many poor attempts at humor, and it’s the only piece of the MCU puzzle that doesn’t fit. My name for this movie is “Tony Stark’s Christmas Special”, and I don’t consider it canon.