Excellent special effects, average cliché script, confused characters

Rating: 7/10 (5 August 2013)

I enjoyed the movie but felt let down as no doubt many have. What stood out the most to me was the missed opportunities to come up with some twists, including ones you'd think would have been used but were anti- climactic. Some parts made no sense to me being that they were contradictory.
Baffling fails:
When Stark's house was being pummeled, you'd expect to see Pepper and the botanist sliding around and grabbing on to things for their life, but strangely it's Tony mainly falling, and who falls. It seemed more logical that the girls would fall, and he'd rescue them, instead, weirdly, for no apparent explained reason, Jarvis shoots Tony out to seemingly the middle of no where far from the girls, leaving them at the mercy of more attacks or killed from some accident due to the compromised structure.
The latest iron man suit goes onto Pepper without apparent explanation at one point, and she's able to use the suit, yet later in the movie when Iron Patriot asks for a suit, Tony says "Sorry, they're all coded to me." Then how was Tony able to get the suit onto Pepper?! And how was another suit able to get onto the president if it comes on automatically and not manually? It seemed Tony was able to use mental control combined with verbal, but where was the verbal when he got it onto Pepper? Stupid. Also Pepper is taller than Stark, so how was the suit able to fit on her, does it have height adjustment!?
Another thing that was nonsensical was the regeneration of characters who lost limbs: in order for large amputations to be healed as was the case in the movie, you'd need matter for that, you can't just come up with the material for a new limb out of thin air, you'd have to eat or have at least the fat in your body necessary for such a healing. The same goes for the absurd healing powers shown for Wolverine in movies he was in. It would have made sense if the characters with the regeneration ability were shown immediately scarfing down some high calorie meals they had and drinking water to regenerate, but nope, just magic and hoping for a stupid dumbed down kiddy audience that entertains comic idiots and parents just hoping to shut their kids' whining for entertainment up for a few days.
Didn't like how the kid partner in the movie made a clearly pretentious adult comment-toned, "that's what they all say" when Tony asked him if he believed the bomb story too.
I also thought it curious that the bad guy (actually just realized how this looks like anti-conspiracy theorist propaganda in the movie while typing this) implies that terrorist front men like Bin Laden were merely puppets of the rich, yet in the movie, I forget who, said the President allowed some oil rich guys who spilled oil to get away without punishment, so, why then the big rescue of the president like he was someone worth saving if he was a villain himself? Why was instead the Vice President arrested, and WITHOUT EXPLANATION, only some implication that he was partnered with the Mandarin? I'm starting to hate this movie now that I type all this out. It would have been better if Stark said to the Pres after rescuing him, "Oh before you go, please, stop bailing out the rich, we have enough money to bail ourselves out."
Lost entertainment avenues: the botanist just gets shot dead, no saving herself at the last second by injecting herself with an overdose of her super formula, just, dead, at least seemingly. Hopefully she reappears later on mysteriously healed and with no powers in a later movie. And Pepper, after falling to her seeming death is out of the picture for too long in my opinion and was awkward in that you'd think if you fell into a big bonfire, you'd get up after your healing powers kicked in, and they should have right away, and ran out screaming, at least if you were Pepper. But no, she shows up at THE LAST SECOND so to speak, to rescue Tony. Come on. So she was on fire the whole time and didn't die? That's kinda unrealistic.
Also nonsensical was that one mean military girl with the burn marks: and why didn't her burn marks heal? After typing that it occurred to me it could have been because those were real burn marks, even if not, why didn't they heal, does the formula not work on scar tissue? I guess not.
I also did not like the pathetic over dramatic scenes where Tony is displaying soft post traumatic stress disorder and trying to make it come off as severe. It DID however look like the acting of a narcissist, and in a previous Iron Man he admitted to being one, so if the idea was to make Tony look like a typical narcissist drama queen, yeah, it works, but it seemed to me more like a poor script idea trying to come off as deep and later funny when he PTSDed out on the kid.
I want to give it an 8 for the kinda of pro teaparty "that terrorist bogeyman is just a stooge of the rich" comment, but with the Iron Patriot theme, and putting the president in an Iron Man suit, just looked like a movie about vanity over justice. I'm not saying it was actual propaganda, perhaps pandering to the government as usual to get some private funding for the next movie, or popular buzz from the Obama admin (which would alienate conservatives if was the plan), and can't since the Avengers movie showed rebellion against the government command to nuke Manhattan, which made the gov look stupid.
As a Christian, I'd give it a one for being godless.