LogFAQs > #901584666

Iron Man 3

I'd heard mixed reviews about this movie, so I wasn't sure what to expect going in, but I gotta say, I really, really enjoyed it. While perhaps not as pure, streamlined, and sleek as the original, I thought it was leaps and bounds ahead of Iron Man 2 and would fairly easily fall on the top half of my list so far.

Starting with a negative this time, I will say that the plot was a little convoluted. Perhaps this was just me falling asleep at the wheel, but I was having a rather hard time following the point of the fire-breathing, exploding veterans, their junkie habits, and how that all tied together, though reading a synopsis afterwards tied it all together. It works, but it was a little silly and I feel I can pretty safely say it was hard to follow, as I'm not really an absent-minded viewer. My wife is watching these movies with me, and it was a case where we both were able to fill in some gaps for each other afterwards, here meaning it was likely all explained, but just a bit convoluted. I also was a little taken aback by the Mandarin twist because I thought it undermined a cool performance from Ben Kingsley, but I adjusted and ended up quite liking it. It's my understanding that this got some backlash from fans, but to be transparent, I'm not exactly a comic reader so I didn't have any expectations coming in. I think there is something to be said about the movie preaching that perhaps we should be more afraid of the shady CEO manipulating things behind the scenes than we should of the Big Bad Other. I enjoyed that. Plus, hey, Ben Kingsley knocked both parts of the character out of the park.

For more positives, as always, RDJ killed it and I like him and Pepper more every time I see them together. The "barrel of monkeys" sequence plus the reveal that Tony wasn't in the suit was one of my favorite setpieces of the MCU so far, and all the fiery veterans were, while almost too silly, still good for fun, creepy villainy. I loved Tony's relationship with the kid and also loved Tony's struggles with PTSD, two angles I could see people not liking but that I truly enjoyed. I loved exploring what makes Tony Stark tick, and diving into how he would cope with how thoroughly his world had been rocked in The Avengers was more interesting than avoiding it entirely, IMO. Props for the bonus scene revealing he was confiding all this in the Hulk, which got a good laugh out of me.

This gave the original Iron Man movie a run for its money, though it is held back by a little convolution, but easily surpassed the first sequel and is probably the next best standalone film I've seen so far outside of perhaps Captain America. That said, I'm glad to be done with Iron Man solo adventures for now, as three of the first seven movies being devoted solely to him is a pretty hefty chunk.
---

https://www.bigplay.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/img_6703.jpg