Review of Iron Man 3 (2013) by Joanna C — 14 Sep 2014

Probably my favorite of the three Iron Man movies. I liked the first one but it was an origin story and not quite Iron Man yet. The second one was abysmal with Mickey Rourke as the villain, so it makes this clearly the favorite. I can understand why people don't like it, with Ben Kingsley's "villain" role(spoiler) not being a true villain, and more of a joke. But it was a Marvel movie, so I was fine with it. Ben Kingsley was hysterical as the "actor." Guy Pearce played a hoaky cartoony villain, but I liked his fire powers and someone who actually strived to be a real adversary to Tony Stark was a welcome change. I know it was more "fantasy Xmen" than most people were expecting from an Iron Man movie, but I dug the pyro super soldiers plot.

I also for one appreciated the scenes between Tony Stark and the kid, as it opened up Tony Stark's personality more than we had seen before. We saw a softer side to him, coupled with his paranoia and torment from the events of the Avengers. Pepper Potts finally felt like a real character for once, instead of either eye candy/set dressing or a wall to Tony just to bounce of jokes, like in the first two movies.

The special effects were terrific, the cgi and practical fx were seamless I thought. And the action scenes felt significant and filled with emotion, not just mindless visual nonsense. If Shane Black wanted to come back to do an Iron Man 4, I would be very open to it. Unfortunately, with the bad critical reception and negative fan response, I doubt they'll ask him back, after what he did to the iconic "Mandarin" character.