Iron Man 3

I liked this movie. I liked it a lot. But then again to be honest all Iron Man 3 had to do for me was be better than Iron Man 2, and it most certainly was. There were a lot of threads that needed to be tied together; the existing Iron Man universe, the fallout from the Avengers movie, and a new villain for our modern world. The last point is the one that I seem to differ with quite a few people on, BE WARNED IT'S A SPOILER! and I'll get to it a bit later in the review.

Iron Man 3 reconnects us with Tony Stark. It's been several months since the events in New York (from the Avengers, remember that little flick?) and things aren't going so well for everyone's favourite millionaire, philanthropist, engineer/playboy. He saved New York by flying that bomb through the worm hole, and ever since then has been having a bit of an existential crisis. He can't sleep, and when he does he's haunted by those events. To keep his genius busy he's been building some new Iron Man suits, did I say some? I mean A LOT of Iron Man suits. I think he's taking the 'does the suit make the man or the man make the suit' conundrum a bit far...but this is Tony Stark we're talking about here. On top of incessant tinkering, Tony's trouble with dealing with his feelings is causing him to push those who love him away. Silly Tony, just when things with Pepper were starting to go well!

As much as I enjoy watching Robert Downey Jr. act with those adorable anthropomorphic robots in his lab and the witty banter between him and Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts, that does not a movie make. Enter the Mandarin! The Mandarin is a terrorist (played brilliantly by Sir Ben Kingsley) who is prone to hijacking the airwaves across the US and taking credit for various attacks on American soil. Tony stays out of it until an attack hits a little too close to home, then he acts a little brashly and gives the terrorist his home address making his already fragile personal world fall to pieces. The rest of the movie is Tony Stark rebuilding himself and his suit to come back as the hero we all fell in love with. The most charming part of this is when Tony's stuck in the middle of nowhere, suit out of commission and the world believing he's dead. Doesn't sound charming? Add a smarty-pants kid. RDJ and children is a pretty entertaining combination. Plus they have the same emotional maturity. Sure, it's seems a bit silly that a man with Tony Stark's brains and money would just hang out in small town America, but suspend your belief here folks. He was pretty rattled and then used it to his advantage to do some sleuthing. ANYWAYS! There are some steps and rescues in between, but the movie finally climaxes in a pretty excellent blowup at a shipping yard, yup, it's one of those, needs-to-be-seen-on-the-big-screen type of endings.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!
I'm just warning you now! Here's the thing with the Mandarin: it's all a front. Ben Kingsley is amazing as both the terrible terrorist and the sloppy British stage actor who's been hired to be the Mandarin. WHAT!? I know, fans of the comics have been a bit outraged about this, but I think writer/director Shane Black has taken a very modern look at what terrorism is. It doesn't have to be men in caves in the middle of nowhere, it absolutely can be corrupt scientists manufacturing serums and promoting a fear complex in the US. Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian was charming and horrifying as the true villain of the piece.

A couple extra things.
Don Cheadle was underused in this film.He and RDJ are great together, and quips about the Iron Patriot are funny, but come on! He's such a great actor and could've been used better.
I loved the opening of this movie. As the stars fly over the mountain in the Paramount the first strains of "Blue" by Eiffel 65 start to play. I couldn't help but smile, that was a huge song when I was in high school, and definitely helped put me in the 'Y2K' frame of mind. There was also a quick cameo in this scene, I hope everyone else caught it....maybe I won't spoil it, if you caught it, post it in the comments.
Speaking of cameos, this was my least favourite Stan Lee cameo. After his hilarious one in The Amazing Spider-Man I had high hopes.

That's about it! It wasn't as good as the first Iron Man, which officially launched Marvel's Cinematic Universe 'Phase 1', but it's a not too shabby way to launch 'Phase 2'. We have Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: Winter Soldier and  Guardians of the Galaxy leading up to Avengers 2 to look forward to!