Poll: What Did You Think of ‘Iron Man Three’?

Why ‘Iron Man 3’ Should Have Been Called ‘Iron Meh 3’ – An Essay by Luke Hickman. [Warning: Spoilers ahead.]

For the first time since last November’s “Why I Thought ‘Skyfall’ Sucked” post, I’m back with another spoiler-filled rant dedicated to explaining why I thought ‘Iron Man 3’ is a mediocre three-quel and not even close to deserving the praise that it has been getting. If you haven’t seen ‘Iron Man 3’ yet, proceed with caution, because I’m about to blow every secret out of the shallow water in which they reside.

First off, let’s talk history. Everyone praises the first ‘Iron Man‘. Like the majority of the world, I love it too, but let’s not pretend that it’s perfect. You can’t ignore the fact that it has an underdeveloped villain thrown into the third act just to give the film a climax. Because the movie is an origins story – which it does very well – I’m willing to let that slide.

What I don’t understand is the trend of bashing ‘Iron Man 2‘. Sure, it’s jumbled with too much thrown-in ‘Avengers’ set-up, and the showdown between the heroes and the villain is extremely anti-climactic, but it’s still a fun blockbuster that features a lot of Iron Man destruction – which is something that you definitely cannot say for ‘Iron Man 3’.

When ‘The Dark Knight Rises‘ opened last summer, a big complaint that I often heard was about how Bruce Wayne doesn’t put on the Batman suit for nearly an hour, then disappears for the middle section of the film. I didn’t have a problem with that, but I can’t say the same for ‘Iron Man 3’. ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ was actually doing something in Batman’s absence; it was building an intricate plot that connected all three of Christopher Nolan’s films. During Iron Man’s absence, ‘Iron Man 3’ still tries to include action while explaining a flimsy Swiss-cheese plot. And if Bruce Wayne had finally jumped into his batsuit only to take it off again – which Stark does repeatedly in ‘Iron Man 3’ – then I would have had a problem with it too. Each cinematic appearance of Iron Man leading up to this (including his role in ‘The Avengers‘) has warranted the writers to come up with supposedly cool and new versions of the Iron Man suit. In ‘Iron Man 2’, Stark had a briefcase that suited him up at the Monte Carlo Grand Prix. In ‘The Avengers’, Stark has the nifty bracelets that allowed him to suit-up while falling from Stark Tower. Sadly, the emphasis on new suits is taken to an extreme in ‘Iron Man 3’, except that none of them are very cool.

That’s right, the suit concepts in ‘Iron Man 3’ are awful and over-used. They’re an unstable crutch for the unstable character to lean upon. His new suits have two purposes: They either highlight how fast Stark can get in and out of the suit or they emphasize that a pilot is no longer needed to man them. If you’ve seen the trailers, both surprises are already wasted. You already know that Stark can suit-up/disrobe quickly, and you know that he has a 40-something unit fleet of Iron Man suits that Jarvis can fully control. Because the would-be coolness of Stark’s latest inventions were revealed in the TV spots, the only worthy surprise of the franchise is non-existent. And the climax to the movie – the time that we’re depending on seeing Stark suit-up – is hardly entertaining when the Man of Iron doesn’t spend more than five consecutive seconds in a single suit. (Of course, I’m exaggerating about the five seconds.) It would have been nice to see Rhodey finally do some damage in his Iron Patriot suit, but no, he doesn’t get to wear his suit either. Instead, the two run around with simple handguns. All of a sudden, we’re teleported back to Shane Black’s ‘Lethal Weapon‘ days – only not as entertaining.

Perhaps a better title for ‘Iron Man 3’ would have been ‘Tony Stark’. After all, the emphasis of this third standalone chapter is entirely on Stark – not the iconic suited superhero that we’ve paid to see. I really enjoy Shane Black’s other films, but he’s stuck in a rut. ‘Iron Man 3’ is nothing more than ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang‘ with loads of visual effects. It pulls Stark out of the suit and places him in a buddy movie that’s needlessly set during Christmas. At first, Stark is briefly accompanied by Pepper – whom I’ll rant about later – then he’s aided by the first kid that he comes in contact with – whom I’ll also rant about later – and then he’s joined by Rhodey – whom I will also rant about later.

After the villain known as the Mandarin – which I’ll come back to – blows up Stark Manor, Tony and broken suit are rocketed to Tennessee, where Tony runs into a random kid who inspires Downey to rattle off quip after quip. The footage with Stark and the kid is funny, but it’s too funny. The comedy from this section of the movie takes precedence over the actual plot. Instead of letting us feel the tragic weight of a military soldier who spontaneously combusted against his will and killed four innocent people in the process, we see Stark riffing on some random kid in long, drawn-out rambling sessions that are comparable to any given Vince Vaughn movie. Twenty minutes easily could have been shaven off from ‘Iron Man 3’ by simply removing these pointless rants.

The kid (Ty Simpkins) may not annoy like Jake Lloyd from ‘The Phantom Menace‘ or Dakota Goyo from ‘Real Steel‘, but these scenes are given way too much emphasis. Truthfully, they should have landed on the cutting room floor. My belief is that they were injected into the movie just to give the heartless Tony Stark a soft moment in the end. Am I the only one who rolled my eyes when Random Kid fixed the destroyed Iron Man suit? This idea is ludicrous. In the first ‘Iron Man’, Obadiah Stane couldn’t even make an Iron Man suit without seeing the remnants of Stark’s destroyed original, but this little turd can completely fix Jarvis’ CPU and electrical system while Tony tracks down the Mandarin? Lame. Unforgivably lame.

Although no specific word has been released, it sure seems like ‘Iron Man 3’ is the closing chapter on Stark’s standalone trilogy. The suits are gone, along with his home, workshop and chesty arc reactor. He gave his word to Pepper that he’s done, so the only thing that might make him put the suit back on is Pepper’s death. (I’m currently reading the ‘Bourne‘ novels, so this idea is fresh on my mind.) Not only that, the closing credits feature shots from all three ‘Iron Man’ movies like a recap of all events. Instead of saying “Iron Man will be back in The Avengers,” like the other Marvel movies have done, the credits of ‘Iron Man 3’ close with something like, “Tony Stark will return.” If this truly is the end to his standalone saga, the story is a fizzling closer.

‘Iron Man 3’ tries to pull a ‘Dark Knight Rises’ by bringing the story full circle, but it’s an incoherent waste. First off, the big Mandarin reveal is a joke. The Mandarin is Tony Stark’s nemesis, so I felt robbed when he turned out to be some non-threatening dopey British actor. It’s like watching Julia Roberts play Julia Roberts within the plot of ‘Ocean’s Twelve‘ – absurd creative-less crap. The fact that the leader of the Ten Rings wasn’t really the leader of the Ten Rings was even worse. When Aldrich Killian offers the expository dialogue saying something like, “I am the Ten Rings. It was always me. I made you,” the tale of this entire trilogy is undermined and bastardized. It makes no sense why he would be behind Tony’s original kidnapping. Yes, the Ten Rings were behind the kidnapping, but under the orders of Obadiah Stane. Aldrich’s involvement is unbelievably forced and unnecessary. In fact, it’s not even really explained, just glazed over. But for me, that’s not even the worst part about his involvement.

I hated the villain aspect of ‘Iron Man 3’. It’s hard to have a villain on the same level as Iron Man, but the best the writers could come up with were evil ‘Captain America‘ “supersoldier serum” knock-offs – people who were given a treatment that makes them heal instantly and fight in a fashion that the Iron Man suits can’t keep up with? This concept sounds like another Blonsky backfire (from ‘The Incredible Hulk‘), only instead of turning into Hulk-like beings, these henchmen glow red with fire and occasionally explode and / or breathe fire. When you’re placing a comic book into a mainstream medium, this is the kind of corny crap that you have to adapt or remove. Only making matters worse is the moment that the kidnapped and infected Pepper Potts transforms into a sports bra-donning fiery supersoldier. The last thing that anybody wants to see is Pepper do a slow-motion back-flip while punching a hole through an Iron Man suit. Horse crap.

As if it wasn’t stupid enough watching Random Kid single-handedly fix an Iron Man, I couldn’t believe the unexplained power that the villains were given. They could not only take out an Iron Man suit like it was nothing, they could touch a suit and render it immobile. One henchmen grabs Iron Patriot’s arm and, all of a sudden, the suit is unmovable while still functioning otherwise. Rhodey could easily hop it out, but chose not to. When he finally does, it’s nothing. The bad guys immediately have the suit running perfectly again – good enough to get the president off of Air Force One.

Speaking of the Air Force One rescue, between ‘Thor‘ and ‘The Avengers’, how many times have we seen Loki fool people with his holographic replicas? In that exact same fashion, how many times were we fooled by a Stark-less suit in ‘Iron Man 3’? At least the same amount of times – only Joss Whedon’s ‘Avengers’ script was smart enough to make a joke about using the same gimmick again. In ‘Iron Man 3’, we not only get the apologetic reference, but we’re tricked for no reason at all. What was the purpose of not having Stark in the suit during the Air Force One rescue? Was it just so that the suit could be dismantled by a passing diesel? If so, how is it that the suit didn’t completely fall apart one of the other many times that it was hit by a blunt force throughout the movie? Again, this is just another citation showing how the emphasis of ‘Iron Man 3’ was placed foremost on comedy – not plot, not characters, and definitely not action.

Despite all of my bashings, ‘Iron Man 3’ isn’t terrible. It just isn’t very good, and it’s certainly not worth all of the praise that it’s gotten. ‘Iron Man 2’ is a much better installment than ‘Iron Man 3’. When you realize how close their Rotten Tomatoes scores are, that bold statement doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch. (‘Iron Man 2’ is at 73% and ‘Iron Man 3’ is at 79%.) If this is indeed the final chapter of the ‘Iron Man’ saga, it surely isn’t a satisfying way to go out. I still look forward to ‘Thor: The Dark World’ and ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier, mostly because they aren’t made with egos behind the ‘Iron Man’ trilogy and ‘The Avengers’. Yes, I’m not a fan of the inflated geek-centric minds behind them. Their geekiness is getting the best of them and we’re at risk of seeing Marvel’s movies slip into comic book hypernerdy obscurity.

Coming straight off the heels of ‘The Avengers’, ‘Iron Man 3’ has some huge iron rocket boots to fill. When Christopher Nolan finished ‘The Dark Knight’, he said that he wouldn’t do a third Batman film unless he could write something that was even grander. It took several years, but he lived up to his word. Like it or not, there’s no denying that ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ took Batman to a new level. Now, if only we could get Marvel to take a page from Nolan’s book of integrity and make similar promises.

What Did You Think of 'Iron Man Three'?

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48 comments

  1. Dan

    Loved the movie. I think “Tony Stark” is far more interesting to watch then a CGI suit.

    Bruce Wayne on the other hand does not have near the interesting factor as he does when puts on the bat suit.

    • Chapz Kilud

      A lot of people don’t find those sharp witty comments from Tony Stark funny. The ability to say those things doesn’t make one a good actor. I think some people gave Robert Downey JR a lot more credit than he deserved. He’s not anywhere near the best 5 actors as some suggested.

      Bale is not a great actor. But for Dark Knight he did his job. Batman does not need to be interesting. The fact is DKR portrayed the real danger and desperation better than IM3. Iron Man was never in any danger. Mandarin was the biggest joke and fraud. Killian got blown to pieces so I don’t how how he was ever that serious or dangerous to begin with. You couldn’t say that with Bane and Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter.

      • Dan

        Unlike most superheros, Tony Stark is iron man and iron man is Tony Stark. When Tony is in the suite, his personality does not shift or change.

        Because of this, when Tony is not in his suit he is just as interesting if not more then when he is in his suit. Call me a poor judge of acting, but I feel that RDJ is perfect as Iron Man.

  2. Jason

    I’ll take IM3 over DKR any day. DKR was such a let down. Sure there are some things that I wish IM3 did differently, I’m looking at you Mandarin, but overall it was a great way to kick off the summer blockbuster season and a worthy addition to the Marvel Movieverse. Now I’m really looking forward to Thor: TDW and I’m really hoping we start getting some easter eggs for Phase 3. Such as the rumored appearance by Dr. Strange.

    • Jason

      I’ll never get over how Bruce Wayne Houdini’s into a locked down Gotham City in the third act of DKR.

      • I’m waiting for the rumored Directors Cut that features everything that had to be cut in order to get the film to fit on an IMAX hard drive. I’m not saying that the answer will be there, but it Batman can fly and swing off of things, why couldn’t he have come by air? We already know that he (needlessly) poured a kerosene Bat symbol on the side of the bridge tower, so I image that’s how he came over.

      • Steve p

        Really?? He’s the goddamn batman that’s how.

        He escaped the prison, walked over to the town they panned over to, called up a a contact, they flew him back to Wayne manor (which isn’t in Gotham city), then flew the bat into Gotham, most likely at night in stealth mode. Problem solved. Why is this so hard for people to understand?

  3. J

    If you din’t care for Iron Man 3 because you felt parts of it were unbelievable, then why do you have so praise The Dark Knight Rises? Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman was the most horrible and unbelievable character work I have seen in recent movies. The way Catwoman was physically taking down (beating up) men 3 times her size was laughable and unrealistic to say the least. I can hardly stand to watch that movie because there is No way a woman could kick that much ass on men that could have crushed her skinny body with one squeeze. Dreadfully horrible and completely unrealistic.

    • That’s a pretty bold (ahem-sexist) generalization. I’m willing to bet that there are few men who could take down Gina Carano and she’s tinier (height-wise) than Hathaway.

      • Ryan

        thank you for this comment. I found nothing about Catwoman to be unbelievable (except maybe that first backflip out the window)

    • Chapz Kilud

      It’s a sci-fi film so for me the unbelievable element doesn’t bother me that much. DKR has flaws and IM3 has tons of holes. But when I look back, IM3 has at least 30 minutes that could be cut out without deteriorating the film. We’re talking about things that didn’t make sense and wasn’t resolved that could have been left out. A lot of people thought IM3 was confusing. That’s because IM3 contained a lot of garbage that should have been cut out.

      The quality of character development and storytelling in IM3 are inferior to any Dark Knight. It has to do with the producer and director. This is what you get for mindless blow them up movie like IM3. I said it before and I’ll mention it again. When my kids couldn’t get anything meaningful out of IM3, that’s a bad movie. Oblivion wasn’t that great. But at least my kids came up with this short summary: “Some guy discovered he was the instrument of evil and turned against his master to save the people he loved”. You’re older and more knowledgeable than my kids. I challenge you to come up with something for IM3 better than my kids’ “some bad guy destroyed Iron Man’s home so Iron Man beat him up and killed him”

  4. It was just as disappointing as TDKR. There were some great moments, and some really bad ones. The over heating soldiers was an awkward power. The unassembled Iron Man flying suit parts looked silly. Did I say Iron Man or Iron Giant? Why would it be so much to ask for a Chinese villain with magical rings? He would of fit right in with the almost magic Iron Man technology and the lava spitting bad guys. Everyone keeps insisting that the Mandarin as shown in the comics would not work in a live action setting, but after seeing Stark’s unbelievable tech and lava zombies… The Mandarin reveal wasn’t too bad because he never felt like the Mandarin anyways. I actually thought it was pretty ballsy and Ben Kingsley cracked me up. I hated that the iron suits seemed so disposable. I feel like I saw more Iron Man in Avengers than in Iron 3. In real life unmanned weapons like tanks or planes is a good thing because it prevents human casualties but an unmanned Iron suit in an Iron Man Movie is kind of lame. It is Iron MAN after all. Despite all that it was still pretty entertaining and better than TDKR.

  5. Drew

    Luke,

    I take my hat off to you. Everything you say is right on the money. I put up a post on my blog, that is almost identical to yours, last Thursday. I said, word for word, that this film should have been titled, ‘Tony Stark’, rather than ‘Iron Man 3’. There’s no Iron Man in it.

    Unfortunately, I had already bought tickets to a Friday showing. I decided that it was possible that I had set my expectations to high, and promised to have an open mind to give it another chance. I also committed to setting a stop watch on the total amount of time that Tony is actually in an Iron Man suit, in the entire 2 hour and 20 minute film. The grand total: 10 minutes and 36 seconds. And that’s even including the amount of time that he’s just laying in it, doing nothing, after crash landing in Tennessee. 10 MINUTES AND 36 SECONDS, IN A 2 HOUR AND 20 MINUTE FILM!!! People complained that batman wasn’t in ‘TDKR’ very much, but he’s suited up for just over a half hour of screen time.

    If you go into it, considering it a non-Iron Man, and non-Marvel cinematic universe movie, it is better. However, it is supposed to be an Iron Man film, and it never passes up an opportunity to remind us of “New York”, as well as other Avengers related events. When all is considered, it fails on every level.

  6. Rob

    It was a task sitting through this. I enjoyed the first one, hated the second, and now this one is a tad better than the last-but still wasn’t worth much. I like the plane sequence & I didn’t even care much about the Mandarin’s big reveal like so many did-but overall, I found myself looking at my watch several times. Whereas in Oblivion, which I watched twice the weekend before, I was captivated throughout. Not big on the Iron Man universe, I think it’s way overhyped. I do like what Downey does for Stark the way Depp does with Jack Sparrow-that’s the selling point for me.

  7. Ted S.

    I liked Iron Man 2, don’t get all the hate but whatever. But to me this film was a step up and much more entertaining than the second film, sure Tony didn’t spend a lot of time in his superhero suit but I’m cool with that. Also, I’m glad they didn’t force anything related to the next Avenger film. That’s one of my problems with IM2, too many stuff about the Avengers and I found Nick Fury appearance in the film kind of annoying.

  8. Drew

    By the way, the 10 minute and 36 seconds includes the Air Force One rescue, when we are actually not even seeing Iron Man, but merely an empty suit.

    If you cut out that amount of time, I’m betting that legitimate Iron Man screen time dips to about 6 minutes. 6 MINUTES!

  9. Ryan

    Honestly, I agree with pretty much everything you said in this article. But it just didn’t bother me as much. I LOVED Iron Man 1, I liked Iron Man 2…but I kind of hated Avengers (seriously, the movie is BORING). Iron Man 3 had a bunch of issues (you pretty much pointed them all out….except for the fire resistant clothes!!!!!!!!), but it was more entertaining for me than Avengers at least.
    For me, the most annoying stretch was the little kid stuff (he had the newspaper in his hand, how convenient, yet didn’t recognize the dude on his couch??), and when Tony went all James Bond MacGuiver. That was way too cartoony for me. Also, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take minutes for his suit to fly from Chattanooga to Miami!

    one last thing…..I agree, Dark Knight Rises is infinitely better than this movie. I honestly could not respect the opinion of anyone who disagrees.

    • AvengersSucked

      Avengers was the most overhyped movie of the summer.

      IM2 was better than Avengers.

      Looking forward to seeing IM3.

        • Chapz Kilud

          No wonder movie industry is struggling. People like to watch trash. Seriously… Anyone who said Iron Man movies were better than Dark Knight shouldn’t even watch movies. They are nothing but sheeps believing in hypes. To be frank with you I didn’t think Avengers was that great. But at least it went on showing various issues with conflict within different egos and how they put aside differences to work together. IM3 had very empty plot. It’s nothing but a shoot them and blow them up movie for the low IQ’s.

          • And IM3 didn’t use basically false advertising to make it totally appear to be what amounted to a different movie?

            The real bad guy didn’t even have any real dialog in the trailers.

  10. Joe Jones

    1 is the best, it’s the most grounded but 2 versus 3 can be summed up easily —

    Mickey Rourke >>> Generic Red Hot Person

    3 got most everything right EXCEPT the villains.

  11. Considering the high hopes I had after The Avengers (Whedon owns all these other directors) I was totally let down by this movie.

    This was a dumbed down flick for the people with short attention spans who can’t be bothered to read a comic.

    What they did with the Mandarin is worse than what Raimi ended up doing to Venom.

    Anybody that defends this flick deserves it.

    • Ted S.

      Hey Tim, I think you you need to find a woman and enjoy life, it’s only a movie dude.

      BTW, I really enjoyed IM3 so I guess I deserve it, LOL!

      • I enjoy life just fine, thanks.

        You have your opinion and i have mine. We are both entitled to them, but there is no need to make assumptions about peoples personal lives.

  12. Blaine

    I enjoyed it a lot and had no problem with it being a Tony Stark movie, as I thought the tagline of “does the suit make the man” gave a pretty good clue of what to expect. It worked for me.

    I’ll have to watch it again, though, to see if the kid is actually fixing the suit… it looked to me like he was just keeping an eye on it while it was charging and Jarvis was repairing himself (itself.)

  13. Darkchilde

    Wow, wotta lotta noise. First of all to the guy who has a problem with women kicking ass, either deal with it or stop watching modern action films. Is it realistic, no. But then neither are the fights men have. Do you really think one guy can beat 3 guys in a fight? And usually they are twice his size. Was it realistic when Batman in DKR kicked so much ass at the end with wrecked knees and shoulders and a spine that was pushed back in place. Hell no. It pisses me off when people have trouble believing a girl can’t kick as much video game or movie ass as a guy. The difference in realism between Angelina Jolie and Arnold Schwarzennegar going hand to hand with a dragon is minute. In real life, both would last about two seconds. So either get over it or stick to pro wrestling.

  14. Darkchilde

    Second, the reviewer and I have opposite tastes. Iron Man 1 was great, 2 was weal and 3 was somewhere between them. Yes they did too much suit donning. They realized people thought the donning armor shots were cool and took it too far. Also, the kid did not fix the armor or he basically guarded it and maybe wielded a wrench or two at Jarvis’ direction; Stane was not talked through procedures by the AI.
    DKR sucked in almost every way, so if you liked it I will never understand your taste. If you think punching a broken back into place is more realistic then anything you complained about in IM3, there is little more to say. And Pepper kicking ass was awesome. She worked hard for that body, let the girl flaunt it.

  15. Steve p

    I agree with almost every word you said. The one disagreement is the comment about kiss kiss bang bang, which is way better than this movie.

    That being said, yes, iron man 3 was a fun action flick, but it had too much comedy and way too many disappointing moments. Your review is pretty much perfect

  16. Bryan

    First off, the kid didn’t fix the armor at all. He was just watching/guarding while the system self-repaired (via the AI).

    Second, regardless of what the actual screen time of Tony in an actual suit of armor is, it certainly doesn’t come across that there is a lack of Iron Man in this movie. Maybe it’s the fact that RDJ just completely inhabits the role. Using the comparisons to Dark Knight Rises, Bale always seemed a little schizophrenic – two completely different people when he was Bruce Wayne or when he was Batman. In comparison, (and to re-visit the line that’s been used many times now), Tony Stark *is* Iron Man. There’s not much distinction in my mind. So while he physically might not be in the suit fighting the bad guys for 3/4 of the movie, he’s still essentially functioning as Iron Man for most of it (if that makes any sense). Having said all of that, I wouldn’t have minded a little more of Rhodey in his suit (although I hated the re-brand of War Machine as Iron Patriot – anyone who knows any of the history knows that Iron Patriot was *not* Rhodey, but I digress.)

    The Mandarin – OK – this gripe I kind of agree with. I still think it would be difficult to explain how somebody would acquire ten alien rings without a whole lot of back story (and without turning the whole movie into a cartoon) but I was genuinely shocked at how they handled (arguably) Iron Man’s biggest nemesis.

    And Extremis wasn’t an invention of the screenwriters. In fact, there have been multiple arcs in the comics about Extremis over the past 10 years or so. I was impressed they at least *tried* to keep the origins of it intact. Maya Hansen was the one who developed it in the comic, with Tony providing some assistance along the way. (In fact at one point Tony himself has Extremis implanted into himself and more or less “grows” the armor on command – in fact, since he had stabilized Extremis, I almost thought/hoped that’s the procedure they were doing at the end – and not the removal of the shrapnel.)

    Ultimately, I still really enjoyed it – and hope it’s not the end of Iron Man on screen.

    • I had the same thought about the operation at the end, especially considering that with his resources he could have had the shrapnel removed anytime and when I mentioned it to my fiance she made a good point. That the healing factor from Extremis may be the reason he could survive the operation. That makes his re-assertion that he is Iron Man at the end (fully expected the armor to erupt from his skin right then) followed by the “Tony Stark Will Return” a nice wink wink moment.

  17. Chapz Kilud

    Luke Hickman, it was really nice to see someone who does not follow the crowd and speaks against the overwhelming consensus. I thought Bryan Kluger’s review was very flawed. If you read his review on Oblivion and Iron Man 3, they are self conflicting. And I used solid examples that would crack his argument. The only thing Bryan Kluger got going for him is the revenue IM3 brings. It will definitely surpass any Dark Knight movies. But Dark Knight had sophisticated plot. Iron Man 3 is nothing but a mindless blow them up movie for the mentally challenged. It is quite an empty film. If that’s what people want to see, then the movie industry is definitely getting the wrong signal. They will continue to produce junk like Iron Man 3. That’s bad for the industry in the long run, and bad for serious movie goers who want to see well directed and produced movie with good story telling.

  18. Baked Waker

    I actually found that the both Skyfall and TDKR shit the bed so monumentally, that my expectations have been severely tempered with regards to these instant blockbusters, and I was able to enjoy IM3, particularly after the movie, when my disappointment to the recent bond and Batman shitpiles actually increased to the point I was angry at them for being so ba;, this one was, although far from perfect, exactly what was needed to cleanse the palate. Here’s hoping Man of Steel is as awesome looking as the trailer.

    • Chapz Kilud

      I agree I didn’t think Skyfall should be the best selling Bond movie ever. At the same time, I don’t think IM3 deserves to be the second fastest selling movie of all time. I admit TDKR has many flaws. But it had a much sophisticated and refined plot. You also have several shocking twist/surprises, with Ra’s al Gul and Batman’s surviving in the end. The only big surprise you get in IM3 is that Mandarin is a pathetic clown. Storytelling and character development were very poor in IM3 when you compared it with TDKR.

      And nobody pointed out with all the money they spent on special effects and 3D, they couldn’t make 3D rendering rival that of Avatar. This was a very average 3D performance at best.

  19. Dawgs

    I thought IM3 was good, better than the 2 definitely, but not as good as the first, even with a weak arch-villain in IM1. The biggest problem I had with 3 is the fact that he isn’t even in the suit when a lot of the action goes on. And I really don’t need the “prototype, not combat-ready suit” angle. I love Downey as an actor, and he nails the smart-ass playboy perfectly. One other thing: do we really need the “Iron Patriot”? It’s WAR MACHINE!

  20. I wont be able to see this for some time unfortunately, but I cant help but comment on the comparisons to TDKR. What movie were you watching that seemed to be a perfect well thought out finale to a trilogy?

    TDKR is so full of plot holes and editing issues that even though I do enjoy the film, it doesnt come close to the greatness TDK. I mean how can you explain the stock exchange and missing bikes going into the place? they show up in full motorcycle gear but have no bikes and yet magically they are all in there to escape with when they are done? Transition during that chase from day to night in one drive through a tunnel, broad daylight to night time, Bane finding Wayne’s OFF THE BOOKS hideout, the city sending EVERY FREAKING cop into the sewers at one time, Yes Batman showing up into a city after he was left with absolutely nothing clear across the world, no cell, no clothes, no money, nothing at all…but magically gets back into the city and draws a bat symbol out of gasoline on a tower with no explanation what so ever and countless other problems. The Dark Knight didnt have any of these issues and was a much better and well thought out film. So I really refuse to believe that Iron Man 3 could have anything thats worse, even what you mention isnt so blatantly bad as what I mentioned about TDKR.

    I’m not saying I will love Iron Man 3, but I really enjoyed the first 2 and like Iron Man 2 as much as the first, so I cant imagine that I wont like Iron Man 3 and I really dont think it can live up to all the issues that TDKR has in comparison…

  21. Mike M.

    Great movie until the last 30 minutes. Last 30 minutes were over-the-top,………. and exhausting.

  22. I think describing Sir Ben Kingsley as some Dopey British Actor is incredibly crass. He is an Oscar winning world class actor and your comment is in very poor taste Mr Hickman.

    I agree that he is non threatening and therefore not good casting to play Iron Man’s nemesis.

    • I believe Luke was referring to the character as a dopey actor, not Ben Kingsley himself. Kingsley was plenty threatening in Sexy Beast, so there’s no reason he couldn’t play a villain in a movie like this.

      • I agree, he was referring to the dopey british guy Sir Ben was portraying. Which only ads insult to injury. I wanted to see him chew the scenery as a true representation of a fully modernized version of the comic villain.

        It could have been a part on par with what Heath Ledger did in The Dark Knight. Instead we got a lame joke not worthy of an Austin Powers movie.

        • Ronnie

          No, no, you miss the point. This is precisely the attitude Mandarin in this movie is mocking. Mandarin in this movie is supposed to be a poke in the eye of the self-serious, gritty superhero movie- re: the incredibly overrated Dark Knight Trilogy and its Joker who managed to drain the fun from a supervillain whose thing is being a psychotic clown. It’s a decent tack to take, especially considering Mandarin of the comics is a borderline-racist Fu Manchu stereotype. Additionally, Killian gets a lot of the actually-intelligent political diatribe the original Mandarin had- he wants to keep the War on Terror going indefinitely for weapons profit… a modernization of the original Mandarin’s starting of WWIII for profit.

  23. Liked it better than part 2, not as well as part 1.

    I think Tony works better in the Avengers setting. He’s lost his ability to hold my attention as a main character in his own movies. Plus, they didn’t have the help of Joss Whedon.

    Sure, Shane Black is a top dog with 80s action nostalgia, he just does a so-so job with the Iron Man franchise. There were far too many plot conveniences and unexplained story elements to make this a complete picture.

    It was fun, but seemed rushed and had some soul missing. Onward to the next Marvel movie!!