Iron Man 3

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Belinda, Paul, Aaron

So surprised at how much this is really a Shane Black film. It's a christmas period action film with a wise cracking protagonist who gets the shit kicked out of him and has to fight inner demons to save the day. He storms a compound, shares hilarious wisecracks with incompetent henchmen, let's them know in advance how he will kill them and also gets help from a plucky young kid. As we saw in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Black and Robert Downey Jr. are a great match of sensibilities and that shines here too.

This film also has very similar voice over narration to that film and It really annoyed me, but there was a post-credits scene that helped alleviate some of that and also provided a nice cameo. Don't expect any Avengers 2 set up though, it's just a fun gag.

The evil guys in this film are typically comic-booky, movie-scienced up to provide more of a threat. It's kinda hoaky but I guess it does the job. The Mandarin is a little more illusive however. Ben Kingsley is surprisingly funny. I guess the bad guy just didn't make much of an impact for me.

I don't know enough about the comic storylines to be fussed about changes they've made. I thought the finished film had a lot of great moments of action and humor, they did a lot to showcase Pepper Potts this time around and even Rhodes and Hogan get more to do. The film opens to a very unexpected song and there's a funky retro end title sequence that made me smile. No doubt I'll be seeing it again soon.