Undeserving to be called Iron Man 3, the movie should aptly be named Tony Stark 3

Rating: 2/10 (1 May 2013)

CONTAINS SPOILERS
As you can tell from my score, am I happy with how this movie has turned out? Definitely not! Since when was it okay to sacrifice the original source material just for the sake of comedy and humor. Is the general audience so demanding that we enjoy a few laughs in the cinema that we must make a mockery of the origins of the Iron Man characters? If you have any shred of knowledge about the villains of Iron Man you'll know that firstly I am referring to the Mandarin. What on EARTH was going through Shane Black's mind when he thought "oh I know the Mandarin is the equivalent of Batman's joker, but for the sake of my poorly conceived plot i'll make him a badgering, drug addicted, false loony." I will say the build up to the Mandarin's eventual fraud was quite good. It made me feel as though the Mandarin was going to be one menacing villain. However, when you build a villain up to be what he is intended to be only to tear him down to a piece of crap twist only serves to infuriate the fans of the comics even more. Sure you get a few laughs from the audience who are only there for the general purpose of being entertained by the latest superhero flick, but what do you do to the Iron Man legacy?! Marvel has started something wonderful by establishing consistent characters, stories and settings across multiple film franchises to bring them all together and make the Avengers. 20 years from now do you know how the legacy of Iron Man will be received? The casual fans aren't going to be the ones who have any say b/c they would have long forgotten about the movie. But the true comic book fans who turn what Marvel have done into a cult classic will say "remember how Shane Black made a complete mockery of the Mandarin?" Now back to the movie itself. What was up with the inconsistency in the power of the suits? I didn't realize Iron Man had suddenly turned into Glass Man. The fights that Tony overcame against the Extremis agents weren't even from his efforts alone. He was either controlling a suit from a safe distance, getting Jarvis to clean them up, enlisting the aid of a kid, or relying on his girlfriend's newfound super powers to beat the villains. Did the definition of hero get lost in this movie somewhere? Yes I understand that the director was trying to go for the "I'm still Iron Man without my suit" approach. But if you can't even display feats of heroism what the hell is that sentiment even good for?!
Which leads me to my last point... Way too little of the Iron and way too much of the man. This movie should just be called Man 3 or as I already stated in the title: Tony Stark 3. What is the point of calling it Iron Man when 3/4 of the time you're not even in the suit and when you are, you've suddenly become a failure and not the competent Tony Stark/Iron Man we've come to understand in IM1, IM2 and the Avengers. Yes we understand that everyone has failures, even heroes. But it seems to me the biggest feat he even achieved in the whole movie was saving those ppl from the plane, and he wasn't even in the suit! Oh and of course when he called over his 40 or so suits. But was he doing anything at that point? Pretty sure Jarvis was controlling the helm.
So in closing, this was a bad way to kick start the upcoming action- packed films for the rest of 2013 and I hope there are more like-minded ppl out there who realize this movie has done a terrible injustice to the comics. Please give the distribution rights back to Paramount who won't be afraid to endorse a grittier superhero take and won't turn a loved franchise into a comedy. And if you feel as I do, continue writing bad reviews on IMDb b/c it has no right to be a 7.9/10!