Oh. Dear. God

Rating: 3/10 (4 May 2013)

IMDb - Long time follower - first time review.
I watched Iron Man 3 last night and as I sat down in the plush leather seats of the largest cinema Melbourne had to offer, I was feeling a tingle of excitement. Following the Avengers I was amping for some cross-movie character goodness, not to mention seeing Iron Man battle it out against the Mandarin.
Things started out semi OK. The Mandarin was sending out terrorist threats at a fast pace - these threats mimicking real world philosophies and politics (clever, I thought). Then it got to about halfway through the film and I was wondering "when is something going to actually happen?", or more importantly "when is Ironman going to do something cool - like he did in the first film when a tank fired at him, he dodged it, sent a tiny projectile in return and then turned his back and started walking away with the knowledge already that the tanks ass was grass, and he just mowed it". Come on, that scene was dope.
Instead we get Pepper Pots - who once was a PA in a short skirt, now discussing weaponisable genetic therapies with a greasy businessman. (What are her credentials?). We get a dude that blows up half of Hollywood because he gets too hot. Why he gets too hot is not explained (yes I realise it is because of this extremis project - but why they have the power of lava inside them is beyond me. I thought it was meant to be for regeneration???). We get Tony stark making a mockery of why he is even Ironman, because he can just control the suits from any desirable location. Does this not destroy the whole idea of Ironman? We also get the Ironman suit falling apart in nearly every scene. I thought the suit was capable of more than this, and surely if you have 50 suits then you must be unstoppable - even by superhero standards. We get a laughable joke of the Mandarin. A lot of people have already commented on this so I wont proceed further. And finally we get every god damn person being able to control the suit almost willy nilly. It took Stark ages in the first film to tweak the suit and train in it, then all of a sudden, Pepper Pots and bloody Guy Pearce can fly around and crash to the earth, knee first no less, as if it was as simple as operating an iPod. As for Guy Pearce breathing fire - I literally cried.
My head was in my hands at the end of it. Where was Thor, or Cap or even Hawkeye - someone from Avengers that could even stop by and help for a second before explaining they have their own s%*# to do. Wasn't this meant to be a phase two film taking into account the events of the Avengers? Actually - while we are on that - why didn't War Machine show up in the avengers, if only for a short while? They had aliens laying waste to New York City and where was he? Isn't he meant to be the Presidents' right hand man? The after credits scene summed up the movie entirely - lame and pointless. Everyone will go watch this film because this is how they are marketed, and unfortunately, the poor social state of the world just packs these theaters out with people too stupid to see the wood through the trees. Unfortunately, through sheer hope, I had become one of them. Well no longer! I was left with a foul taste at the end of TDKR, and after this my mouth is even fouler. These films need to be better. The Dark Knight was exceptional - why can this not be achieved elsewhere? They have the money for it, and any resource they can command.
All in all, I would recommend not watching it - but who I am to stop the tidal wave of crap that is currently being produced.
P.S. Dredd ruled. Hard hitting, true to the comics, gory. And that film bombed??? What is this world coming to?