One of the biggest disappointments...

Rating: 5/10 (30 May 2013)

I'll say this...this movie has two good action scenes...and that's it. Iron Man 3 has one of the worst twists for a comic book movie. Turns out the Mandarin isn't the Mandarin, he's an actor pretending to be the head of a terrorist group. I'm surprised more people aren't mad about this. This is blatant false advertising. We were promised the climax of Iron Man vs. Mandarin, instead we get a mad scientist who breathes fire. Our main villain breathes fire...that's the worst comic cliché you could have, especially for a movie...didn't we stop with powers like that in the 50s? I was really let down by this movie. The main villain isn't supposed to be a robot, clone or hologram. Hey guys, guess what, Darth Vader was actually just a hologram built by the Emperor...or wait, Dr. Doom was actually an alien in a body like in Men In Black? That is the dumbest idea for a villain ever conceived, and this isn't the first blatant attempt. That's just insulting our intelligence.
Also, you're telling me the group in the first movie have no leader, they're just some guys in the desert with no purpose in the span of three films? Has anyone noticed the trend of "villains with a twist" in movies nowadays? In Prometheus, Guy Pearce appears as Weyland, and no one cared he was there, and then no one cared when they revealed his daughter, for no apparent reason, and then no one cared when he died. Dark Knight Rises, Talia al Ghul, who everyone say coming, appears in the last 20 minutes of the movie, basically as a "oh and by the way, I'm the villain." Bane, who according to the trailers, we were promised was the villain, turns out is not the mastermind we were all promised, but a sideshow character and lovesick puppy dog taking orders... Plus Bane is killed off in the most anti-climactic way possible. Same thing happened with Mandarin in Iron Man 3.
Mandarin is revealed to be an actor, when according to the trailers, we were all promised the fight between Stark and the Mandarin....way to false advertise Marvel. We had false advertising for two main villains in blockbuster movies. I'm surprised more people aren't outraged at these filmmakers who think they're trying to be clever. Their work comes off as jumbled and disrespectful to the source material, plus they don't hesitate to insult your intelligence. Joseph Gordon Levitt also comments about chasing large alligators in the sewers in the third movie. This is Nolan making fun of Batman and Killer Croc...Nolan thinks Batman and Superman should be realistic...these are comic book characters...what makes them so fascinating is that they are not realistic.
Villains aren't supposed to be revealed as a clone, or robot, or android, or someone from the future, it's a cliché that give comics a bad rap. Villains should be an imposing threat to the hero.