Watchable if you don't read the comics, laughable if you do. **SPOILERS**

Rating: 7/10 (3 May 2013)

I was actually happy with the film during the beginning half of it. It did a good job of tying into The Avengers and blending the Extremis arc with The Mandarin. There were some details I didn't enjoy, like how they turned War Machine into Iron Patriot (who is Norman Osbourne in the comics), or Aldrich Killian being alive (who is dead and has a smaller role in the comics). However, these were details I felt were minor enough to forgive because the story was initially progressing in a good direction. However, once they revealed The Mandarin's secret, everything took a turn for the worse.
How do you manage to take the main super-villain to Iron Man, fill his role with one of the most revered actors in Hollywood, and still manage to completely ruin the character that bad? This version of The Mandarin is just laughable, and it's really frustrating because Shane Black completely missed an opportunity to have one of the most bad-ass movie super-villains ever. And it seemed like everything began to just spiral out of control from that point. Aldrich Killian turns out to actually be The Mandarin, Pepper gets injected with the extremis virus and kills Aldrich, and just a bunch of other nonsense plot devices. They just strayed so far off from the comics that it became too hard to forgive all those minor details.
I will say this for the movie though: If you ignore the comic-book mythos, then Iron Man 3 is actually a good movie. All the actors played their parts really well, the CGI looked great, and the action was solid. However, as a fan of the comics, this movie left a very sour taste in my mouth. If this is what MCU has in store for us, then I'm not excited at all.