Throwaway action, annoying plot

Rating: 3/10 (11 May 2013)

This is one of those action movies that suffers from an excess of action. It can't go for 5 minutes without a fight scene where Tony Stark is supposedly in mortal danger. Of course with a movie like this you know the good guys will survive and win in the end, but when it happens every 5 minutes it's simply impossible to get emotionally invested in any given scene. You know there will be some punching, some kicking, some explosions, and RDJ will walk away basically unscathed. It's tedious.
Likewise, instead of only having a handful of Iron Man suits, this movie literally has dozens, and their impressiveness and significance is diminished accordingly. Especially in the final scene where the suits are torn apart like tissue paper.
Which brings me to the bad guys (and the plot). Supposedly the bad guys are taking a drug that gives them the ability to regenerate limbs and heal quickly. And sometimes unintentionally explode. Fine. But it also inexplicably causes them to have super strength, reflexes, and martial arts abilities. (Huh?) And to make their eyeballs glow red/evil. And to make their limbs so phenomenally hot that they can punch through indestructible metal. And basically to have whatever powers are convenient for a particular scene. In one scene, a main bad guy is killed by two blast from Iron Man's palm-guns, but towards the end, the bad guys can't even be killed by being INSIDE a self-destructing Iron Man suit. (But they can be killed by Gwyneth Paltrow doing a backflip?) It's the epitome of lazy storytelling and it's infuriating, especially since we know these movies can be (and have been) done so much better.