An overall solid film with some unwelcome plot points

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2013)

There is no doubt that there was a lot of excitement leading up to Iron Man 3, but there were also a lot of skeptics due to the change in directors. Jon Favereau, who directed the last two films, has been replaced with Shane Black, writer of Lethal Weapon one and two, as well as director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Immediately the audience can identify this due to a darker tone and a different style of humor. The humor is very funny yet kind of seems out of place. It's like if there is a build up of exciting or dramatic moments, ending with surprisingly funny situation. One place I believe Iron Man 3 succeeds over the other two films is the supporting characters. To be honest, the supporting cast of the last two films never really had too much impact, it was mostly Tony Stark's show. In this movie I was able to see that Pepper was more influential than ever, being the cause of most of the actions Tony takes, Rodey now is much more of a help to Tony and has a completely different role to play. As this is a new chapter in the franchise expect to see to new characters either helping or hurting Tony Stark, most important, of course, is Guy Pierce's Aldrich Killian and Ben Kingsley's Mandarin. I don't want to tell of Killian's importance to the film, however Ben Kingsley in the film is a different story. Well let's just say based on the material he is given, Kingsley does a very good job.
Now for the plot. Overall the plot is decent Tony Stark is dealing with post-dramatic stress due to the events from The Avengers, he discovers new technology such as the one seen in the trailer where he can manipulate different pieces of the suit individually and send them where he wants, he cannot stop dealing tweaking his suits due to paranoia. This creates a challenge for him along with his new threats. However the plots are also where most of the movie's problems exist. There are some directions they take that you will ignore, or will simply infuriate you. I, personally, was infuriated by some that I feel did not need to happen. The ending to the film is kind of strange, it kind of seemed like one of those endings that say "we may or may not make another sequel". However on the bright side, after two films of disappointing end fights, we finally have fight that is satisfying and doesn't last about five minutes (we're looking at you Iron Man 2).
Overall, the movie has a lot of potential, solid performances, solid characters with a plot that sort of bogs the film down. The movie is very enjoyable yet not as good as it could have been. In my opinion, it was still not as good as Iron Man, yet better than Iron Man 2.
My final score: 7/10