A Mechanic. A Twist. A Surgery.

Rating: 8/10 (4 May 2013)

This movie is not perfect, but none are. It is very enjoyable though. I would like to add a few things before I start this review. I am a comic movie fan, I have always know about Iron Man and I would think 90% of comic book characters. Besides some of the Civil War storyline and some older Spiderman and X-Men comics I have not read many others. I did grow up with most of the Marvel TV shows that were on in the 90's though. I have seen most of the motion comics that have been made over the past few years. I did see Extremis so I knew the general storyline that was going into this movie. I honestly don't know why people get so upset that comic book movies don't follow the comic arcs that they are based on 100% how they were written. If you wanted something 100% the same as the comic arc why would you waste your money on a movie? The producers, writers and directors of these movies want to make the story their own based off of the base material the comics that are offered and make it their own story. The first Iron Man is the best in my opinion. From what I have seen on other reviews and the message boards this seems to be true for the most part. This movie is the second best in the trilogy in my opinion, hopefully though it will expand off of this and go into more SOLO Iron Man movies. I understand that at least Tony Stark will be in The Avengers 2 from the end credits of this movie. The movie opened in a way that was very different than the rest of the marvel movies of late. I personally like the Marvel logo with the pages fluttering but it's not a problem. It opened with a conference from back in 1999 on New Year's Eve that introduced Killian and Maya, as well as Happy with a nice 90's mullet. So in the first few minutes we are introduced to most of the key players of the movie, AIM, and the idea of Extremis. It was a very fast paced movie, a lot of what you see in the trailers happened in the first 30 minutes to an hour into the film. Yes there were some plot holes but no movie is without some. If you're going to see Iron Man to diagnose every little thing that is either not cannon with the comics, or not 100% scientifically accurate you are wasting you time. It's a story that been created from the comics for us to spend our money and enjoy. Or watch online like some people do which is not a good idea. The Twist did not bother me, they had a reasonable explanation for it, it wasn't terribly forced, and it was fairly simple. I have seen many reviews comparing it tooSPOILER AHEADBatman Begins. I can see the comparison but it is not really like Batman Begins completely. Yes it was the leader pretending to be someone else with someone else pretending to be the leader. The big difference being in Batman no one other than Batman knew who the leader was. Whereas in Iron Man, The Mandarin is out there for the public to see, know, and fear. The Mandarin was a product of the think tank that was AIM. It made sense when you thought about it, it was so simple anyone could understand and it helped move the story along. Getting to see all of the new suits is something that I think every fan of this series has been waiting for. I've personally wanted to see a Hulk-Buster suit. There were a lot of them that came at the end and he maybe wears five of them. But you never get to see what they can fully do or what makes them different from each other. One thing that I don't like that's not a huge problem is that fact that the War Machine suit was designed by Hammer in IM2 and the Iron Patriot by AIM in IM3. I also would've liked to have seen Hammer, known what was going on with him or something. He was an interesting, funny, bad guy, hopefully not forgotten in future films. I liked the end scene because I really loved the chemistry the two actors have in The Avengers and in Zodiac and in both movies there chemistry is completely different. I did feel though where Maya said Tony used to talk about space exploration and Guardians of the Galaxy is coming up that maybe the end scene should've been him flying into space. Or it could've been like the end of Iron Man 1 or 2 where they introduced the idea of the Avengers and Thor, So Wasp or Ant-Man would've made sense but the scene was fun and clever. Some things I would like to see added to the Marvel Universe would have to be Black Panther, War Machine/Iron Patriot standalone film(s), more SHIELDpossible Redford takeoverand definitely more Stark and Banner together as well as a Hulk movie with Ruffalo. I do feel like if this is the end as RDJ as Iron Man that Don Cheedle will either become Iron Man, be War Machine/Iron Patriot, or be a backup character. The surgery does not suggest that he is not Iron Man anymore, because somewhat alike to Batman, Iron Man is a symbol. As well as the fact that Rhodey, Pepper and a couple other people use suits without the reactors in THEM, but rather in the suit. So now he is no longer in danger but can rather chooses to stay Iron Man because HE IS Iron Man. Overall a very good movie, good action, a lot of comedy, very entertaining, making you want to see Thor, Captain America and The Avengers 2. Everyone can find something to love about this movie.