Ten times better than Iron Man 2, not quite as good as Iron Man, a pretty solid flick by itself.

Rating: 7/10 (13 May 2013)

After seeing Iron Man 2 (which, not to sugarcoat, was a pile of garbage), I wasn't going to bother seeing Iron Man 3. I was dragged to see it, and I must say, I enjoyed it. Some are saying it's the best of the three, but it doesn't touch the first one. But it's also leagues better than the second.
I'll make this review short and address my complaints and the complaints of others. This is a non-spoiler review, so I'll be as vague as possible. Many people complained about how the movie used the character of the Mandarin because it was so unlike the comics. I never read the comics so I personally don't give a damn. I liked what they did, and it was a cool plot twist.
My own biggest complaint was...there was way too much comic relief. The writer(s) of this film thought of a joke for every line and just had to put it in. The amount of comic relief in the first two were perfect, they went overboard in this one. So many people die in this movie. I don't mean main characters. I mean nameless extras. So many die. It's not even funny how many people die in a PG-13 Marvel movie. In addition to one-liners every ten seconds. It was a strange, uncomfortable combination.
I enjoyed the ending, not going to spoil anything, but I liked it a lot. I'd rather not add to spoilers to this review, but random extremely vague point: if you were thinking of the question "why not sooner?" at the very end, it's explained in the comics. Google it. The movie did a poor job of explaining it.
Overall, 7/10.