Post-Avengers, We See the Iron Man We Love from the Books

Rating: Null/10 (14 May 2013)

Here's the problem with Iron Man 3, it's not Iron Man 2.
And we all remember number 2. Overly self-conscious acting and explosions, most of them conspicuous excuses to show off our new armor and effects. An unintimidating threat. Blatant Avengers plugging.
Number 3 does the same thing. It just kinda pretends it doesn't.
Thankfully Iron Man 3 does give us an actual story and character development. The dialogue is more genuine, it feels way less forced.The jokes are actually funny, the women are actual characters, the threat is actually intimidating.
And that's where it gets you.
You go in expecting IM2, and it tricks you into thinking it's a good movie. Because it's way better, way better, but it's not a good movie.
If you go see it with college buddies, it'll be funny. Go see it with your parents, it'll be entertaining. It takes place post-Avengers, so be ready for the references.
If you're into the superhero genre right now, I will recommend it. I just won't call it Oscar-worthy.
Now here are the spoilers.
If you read the comics or know the story, you got really excited when you saw the trailer the trailer and they implied the sentient-suit storyline. I will say in the books it's way cooler, the suit goes crazy and becomes a villain, that doesn't happen in the movie. The movie alternative is actually really cool, though. I'm not sure they could have done that story full-on the way it is in the books because they've already established the fact that JARVIS is in control of the suits. In the books Jarvis is an actual person and the only thing in the suits is a separate VI.
The overall story shows that Stark was somewhat traumatized by his experience with the Avengers in New York and spends months just making more and more suits with different abilities. He even gives them cool names.
When the Mandarin and AIM show up (both established villains in the books, with awesome reboots) he realizes that he has full blown Anxiety and has to deal with the fact that he's genuinely not okay.
After writing a recent article on the stigma of mental illness, I can applaud the writers on this development. It's also in keeping with the books; Tony Stark is usually not without some crippling illness or trauma worth noting. He's been benched for Alcoholism, nerve damage, drug abuse, and currently I believe there was something about his body actually being comatose but forced to be active using the arc reactor in his chest (I might be wrong).
There's also the fact that this movie passes the Bechdel test, the standard measuring whether or not a movie is feminist-friendly. Maya and Pepper are strong women (if not at all independent), one is a revolutionary geneticist and one is the CEO of an influential multinational company. That's pretty awesome to me.
Now the plot twist about who the villains are is something you're not going to see coming. Believe me, I'm not going to spoil that one, but omygaz. I will say, I will only say, Ben Kingsley was the best casting choice I've seen in a while.
Like I said above, if you're a comics fan or you're into the genre right now, I'd go see it. If not, it's probably okay to skip.