The new armor's top-heavy

Rating: 6/10 (5 May 2013)

Let me just say right now that I love what they did with the Mandarin in this movie. We'd been wanting to see the "big bad" since 2008, we're finally getting our wish (retooled as a middle eastern terrorist, but so is everything nowadays) . . . and it's just Ben Kingsley on a pirate broadcast. No real Mandy. That sort of subversion is ballsy (and I can understand the feathers it ruffled), but I love it. Kingsley steals the movie, by the way.
But IRON MAN 3 ultimately tries to pack too much in - and without the grace of its predecessor, it's a meandering mess. There's just too much happening. And I'm a Guy Pearce fan, but Aldrich Killian and the whole Extremis thing were pretty lame. And that final battle was one unabashed toy commercial. I wholeheartedly admit that Shane Black's involvement got my hopes up for this thing, but it's too bloated for its own good.
6/10