Good Marvel film but has a few shortcomings

Rating: 7/10 (4 May 2013)

Many years ago I was hardly a fan of any of "The Avenger" movies. I'm a younger guy in my 20's but I always thought of them as kids movies until my friends took me to see "The Avengers". I was instantly hooked and watched all the previous Avenger films afterwards. With that being said, I was extremely stoked for the new Iron Man 3 movie and went to see it in the theaters on the day of the release. Without further ado, here is my review. Tony Stark is back as Iron Man. IM3 takes place shortly after the events of "The Avengers". The story mostly revolves around Tony Stark's mental well-being. After the events of the Avengers, Stark is dealing with severe anxiety and mental breakdowns that interfere with his work and role as Iron Man. Any mention of the events in New York City and Tony completely loses his cool. Meanwhile, a new villain arises known as "The Mandarin" who, in a nutshell, is out to overthrow the worlds governments and seek out world domination.
First of all, this has all the ingredients of a great Marvel film. State of the art CGI with lots of fun action and adventure in between. The acting by everyone was excellent as usual with some new, welcoming, cast members including Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley. As usual there was also the classic Stan Lee cameo as well as a cameo by Linden Ashy as a military commander (Mortal Kombat/Resident Evil fans, anyone?). Lastly as with any Iron Man film, this has plenty of raunchy, comical moments with Tony Stark and his typical adult humor. Overall the typical ingredients of this film were great. But for all the good this film has, there were just a number of shortcomings that prevented this film from being a classic. Now for the downside. In IM3, the storyline is just bad. It's filled with too many inconsistencies, plot holes, and overall the movie just didn't work that well. For most of the film, Tony is coping with his mental issues. Too much of the movie seems to go on with "Tony Stark" personal problems and not "Iron Man" goodness. He spent about 90% of the movie out of his suit. Also the story all happens around Christmas time which is fine except it just felt a bit... strange, almost like this was made to be a holiday themed Marvel movie. The villain, as menacing as he was, just doesn't quiet hold up to all the other villains of the Avenger universe. And even though the CGI was good, there was "budget" areas of it as well. There is a scene where a water tower gets destroyed and you could tell it was a mini model of a town getting dumped on with water. There also seemed to be a lot less CGI scenes in this one like they were trying to save money on it.
Beyond the rather "clunky" story telling, one of the biggest let downs of this film was the ending parts of the film. I'm not going to spoil the ending here but I personally didn't like it. As with any Marvel movie, after the ending credits role there is a brief scene of (usually) what is to come in the next Avengers film. Without spoiling it the scene after the credits I can safely say isn't very revealing and not worth staying through the credits for. Overall a good Marvel/Avenger film but just doesn't quiet hold up the predecessor films. The original Iron Man to me is still the best. The original film is one of those films that I would tell anyone to watch whether they liked the Marvel films or not. IM3 is not one of those films. If you don't know Tony Stark's backstory and your not that interested in the films, you might actually want to pass on this one.
Good Marvel movie, not for everyone. And I'm sad to say it but it feels like they are running out of ideas of Iron Man. This felt more like a film milking the "Iron Man" franchise for big box office money rather than something that was a real story teller. And it shocks me that any parts of it felt budget-y considering how big of money makers these movies are. Overall 7/10 average film, just not quiet what the other movies were. I would still recommend it though, if you remotely like the Avenger films it's still a great, fun movie to watch. Just not quiet where the originals were.