Lazy writing; a big disappointment

Rating: 5/10 (29 June 2015)

*WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS* I'm going to be honest, I am not the biggest MCU fan. I really like the movies in Phase one, I even like Iron Man 2 and the Incredible Hulk. Phase two... meh. That being the case, I was already on the side of Iron Man movies when I saw this, and am a big superhero movie fan, so for this movie to lose me as much as it did... that's a true feat. This time though, being a fan of the comics actually makes you like the movie less. Even though I hated this movie the first time I saw it, I have grown to enjoy it a little bit. That being said, I still consider this movie to be sub-par. Why? Well, here are just a few reasons. The Mandarin. Yes, this is what I meant by saying if you like the comics, you won't like this movie. The Mandarin is not a menacing super villain armed with alien technology, he's not a warlord, he is not in anyway THE Iron Man villain, in fact... he's not even a villain. The Mandarin is a figure head used by the real villain (more on him in a bit) to draw the attention of the U.S., and not only that, but they took the twist one step farther and turned him into a punch line; he's nothing more than a drunk actor masquerading as a terrorist. And that... no, just no. Look, I understand the comics have to be adapted, I get that, I understand even very popular characters might not be suited for the big screen, I get that too, but the one thing you shouldn't do is disrespect the source material. Taking a few jokes at the dumber moments from the comics is alright (even the actual comic books do that), but this isn't a poke at the comics, this is a slap in the face to the fans, and this instantly put me firmly on the side of against Iron Man 3. This could've been a good twist if they'd used like a c-list villain, but the #1 Iron Man villain? No, that just doesn't work. Another big problem I have with this movie is the massive changes to Tony Stark. I didn't like them. I like seeing Tony looking like he's in trouble, but it should actually be the villain of the movie who breaks him, not just the villain from Avengers. We should see Aldrich Killian (or preferably; The Mandarin) break Tony, push him to his breaking point, and see Tony come back, rise up, and defeat his enemy. A bit like TDKR, but that wouldn't be the only thing they copied from The Dark Knight Rises. Seeing Tony having panic attacks and anxiety issues over the mere mention of the events in The Avengers is a little too much though, and the real villain, Aldrich Killian, is a disposable bad guy for Tony to struggle with for two hours, he's not an arch-nemesis, he's not anything important to Tony, he's just another villain to kill off. Not exactly the way your trilogy you should go out. Another problem I had was all the plot holes, but I try to overlook plot holes whenever possible, because, I'm more interested in the story and characters than every little detail. Still, Tony not bringing out his suits earlier in the movie is a glaring issue that I have a hard time ignoring. Problem #5: the mechanized suits. I know this is in the comics, but having Tony pilot his suits by remote control, and making an army of suits that are easily disposable? I'm pretty sure this movie confirmed at least three of the Five Nightmares from that epic story line (c'mon, you know you wanna see Ezekiel Stane! A villain who could rival RDJ for screen presence? Oh yeah!). Also, it makes Tony not feel particularly special. He just builds the suits, why not just let someone else hold the remote? I have one last problem with this movie and with most of the Phase two movies in general. Joke overload. Seriously, there are too many jokes in this movie, and they are very ill-timed. I don't mind alleviating some tension with a bit of humor, but this movie just straight up has no tension, and that makes me lose interest pretty quickly to be honest. However, I still find Iron Man 3 to be very enjoyable, in a mindless kind of way. Once you realize it isn't very good, it's actually a pretty easy movie to have fun with. It's not like Batman & Robin bad, it's just not very good. In the end, Iron Man 3 is a sub par movie, with good action, good effects, lazy writing, a weak story, and a bad tone.