Comic Fans Beware

Rating: 5/10 (6 May 2013)

Iron Man 3 was not built for the comic fan, despite the multiple comic story lines that it touches on throughout the movie. If you don't follow the comics you'll probably enjoy this one, but God help you if you follow Iron Man comics; you'll probably be furious.
My main issue with Iron Man 3 is its use of the Extremis storyline. At no point does the movie touch on the actual intention of that particular storyline; the idea that genetic engineering had bypassed Tony's suits and technology is completely ignored. Extremis is reduced to a special effect that forces Tony to go through a bunch of suits to win, instead of examining the real fundamental problem: his suits can't stand up to Extremis-enhanced humans. In the book, Tony is beaten so badly by a militant with Extremis powers that he fixes the process, injects it in to himself and actually BECOMES the armor. Why in the world the writers couldn't see the possibilities of this is utterly, completely beyond me. What infuriated me was the ending: Tony apparently uses the Extremis tech to make it so he doesn't need the arc reactor in his chest, but at no point is it explained or expanded upon to make any sense to the casual movie fan. The writers go from insulting comic fans to giving them unexplained lip service at the end which only serves to confuse someone with no comic knowledge.
Now, I'm not saying that the movie was all bad- to the contrary, it held a lot of wonderful moments, and the over-arching storyline was that of a man coming to grips with this anxieties and fears. But my God, so many missed opportunities to expand on the tortured man concept, the inadequacy of his tech in the face of new genetic developments, the fact that by marrying Extremis with the suit he could become one of the most powerful superheroes in the Marvel universe.
I guess my issues with the movie stem from my high expectations; if I'd kept them lower and treated it as the popcorn summer flick that it is, I'd probably enjoyed the movie far more.