Reviews & Ratings for
Iron Man 3 (2013)

The great thing about Marvel Comics superheroes is that we’re more interested in the face behind the costume than the costume. Whereas for their DC Comics counterparts,there is not much about Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne: Their civilian identities are the masks. The characters only crackle when in costume.
Indeed, that’s a rare feat of skill, if Marvel has us more riveted to the plain-clothes civilian than his color-schemed immortal silhouette.
Good thing director Shane Black paid attention and played to Marvel’s strengths. This third movie spends a chunk of its running time with Tony Stark in t-shirt and jeans.
And what’s wrong with that?
Fact is, Stark truly is more charming than Iron Man. Larger than Iron Man even.
Perhaps that is the movie’s very nucleus.
The best parts of the last two Iron Man films and The Avengers were times when Stark is unprotected by his technology and he’s left only with his wits and one-liners to survive a pickle. Consider that precious scene in The Avengers when he tries his best to hide the quaking in his boots when he sees the demigod Loki in his apartment.
But oy! Nothing spells deus ex machina than that infernal exoskeleton coming to his rescue. When the cavalry of gadgets arrives, we sink low on our seats, the delicious knots of suspense in our stomachs…gone.
Thankfully Shane Black, a gifted screenwriter and helmer of the neo-noir Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, knows a thing or two about the arcane science of suspense.
It’s clear that he hates that suit.
Finally, we’re worried about Tony Stark, all squishy meat and bones.
As with the past two films, this third installment follows the skeleton mounted by its former helmer Jon Favreau: A calm first half buoyed by lightning-quick banter, and a second half that’s a pageantry of gadgetry amidst the fireballs.
That said, Iron Man 3 takes its pace like it has all the time in the world. We’re welcomed by flashbacks, expositions and quips for a half-hour before we’re introduced to the all-important threat
The suspense only ratchets up by the time we witness the first set piece, the annihilation of Stark’s beachfront palace—one that may leave you howling in spectacle or silently agog at the Pixel Wizards behind it. There’s freshness in the sight of Pepper Potts donning the armor, if one can shake off the silliness first.
What this franchise really needs are better villains. And yes, finding some is quite the quandary. What’s left when you’ve used up all the mad scientists, the saboteurs, and the terrorists? Well, in this case, marry the three.
Also, I see a trend here.
The good and bad thing about superhero movies is that they inform each other, build on each other’s hits and misses. In Iron Man3, there seems some obvious lifting of ideas from Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins. You decide.
Clearly, the best chapter of the film is when Tony Stark crashes on a provincial town and befriends a kid. The movie’s flavor efficienly swerves into something like E.T. or Russkies, where a precocious child befriends an alien/robot/spy/superhero found in their basement. Now, this is something I call a welcome novelty,something that the past films didn’t touch on. What’s Stark like when he’s around kids?
In true Marvel Comics fashion, we see Stark at his most human when he’s in the company of his junior. These magical minutes could indeed have been Marvel Studios’ riff on Léon the Professional, but alas,there were presidents to be saved and ports to be razed.
Save for a scene where Stark weaponizes hardware-store supplies to infiltrate a secret headquarters, the good things pretty much fizzles out when he leaves the town. And the kid.
And where’s Sam Rockwell when you need him? Agent Coulson? Black Widow? And Happy Hogan is in a coma for most of the movie? The heart of this franchise is its gang of supporting characters. Sadly, the third one is bereft of them. The talented Rebecca Hall isn’t given much to do here, other than pout and dish out science facts. The same goes for Ben Kingsley, whose purpose is for one good laugh. (Clever as the villain switcheroo may be, we’re secretly disheartened by the anticlimax.) Guy Pearce does his best to snarl and toot villain speeches, but he’s never as fun as Sam Rockwell.
In the end,the results are very good. However, we’re not sure what the film drives home. Is it an ode to minimalism and maximalism, of the downgrade and the upgrade? Is it a question of compassion being greater than technology? Or is it just another cliffhanger designed to have us returning for more sequels that its makers could milk?

Marvel's "Iron Man 3" pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man