Not Marvel's best work, but still necessary!

Rating: 7/10 (3 September 2013)

Being a die-hard Marvel fan and having read a lot of the reviews for this installment of Iron Man, I have to agree with most fans that this was definitely not one of the best bits of movie magic that we've seen from Marvel Studios. The producers of this film used way too much creative license in veering off from true Marvel mythology and also attempted to give the film a different feel to the previous two installments, which obviously didn't work in their favor. The apparent lack of AC/DC in the soundtrack was a particular downer for me.
All of that being said, I do believe that this film was necessary in it's structure to pave the way for the next "phase" (to quote Marvel themselves) of the Iron Man/Avengers story. To put it on the big screen the way it has been presented in the comic book universe would have taken far too much story telling. Granted it could have been done in a better way, but this is what was needed to break the link Tony had to the Iron Man suits and mature him as it were to the character we're expecting to see in "The Avengers: Age of Ultron".
While this is no real consolation for the let down after months of anticipation waiting for Iron Man 3 to be released, we can (hopefully) look forward to "The Avengers: Age of Ultron" being what we expect from Marvel.