Iron Man 3: Review

I should start this review by saying I have only seen the first Iron Man film, and that was a long time ago, so I will be talking about Iron Man 3 as if it were a completely stand-alone film. 

Iron Man 3 stars Robert Downey Jr. reprising his role as the smart, rich, smooth-talking philanthropist Tony Stark, known to most now as Iron Man. The film does what many comic-book films have done lately by showing the protagonist at arguably their lowest point, creating a new perspective of the likeable hero. The story plays out with Tony being mentally scarred after the events that took place in Avengers Assemble, leaving him at an incredibly unstable state of mind, not the most ideal when a new villain known only as The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) threatens to attack several locations in America. The story is far more complex than it seems however, but I won't spoil anything here.

Tony Stark / Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) 

I think the most notable reason Iron Man 3 is a very good action movie is simply down to the fact it is a lot of fun to watch. The action sequences are highly entertaining, even though they are incredibly over the top, but that's excusable due to it being a superhero movie. Robert Downey Jr. brings huge amounts of charisma to the character of Tony Stark,  just as well as he did in Avengers Assemble. It's also a rather interesting choice to have the story follow directly on from the events of that movie, but one that completely pays off, with the plot and current state of Tony having a solid reason to it. The acting from other cast members such as Guy Pearce as the suspicious Aldrich Killian or Don Cheadle as War Machine do nothing but compliment the movie, making it even more enjoyable to watch.

Unfortunately there's a few things pulling the movie back for me, forcing it to just miss out on a rating of 'incredible'. There's a rather strange choice of twist in the plot which although humorous, drew me out of the experience, making the film seem slightly like it was grasping for the comedic element a little too much. Saying this however, most of the time the humour in Iron Man 3 is appropriate and genuinely funny, something I was not expecting much of based upon the seemingly darker plot. Also, there were a few times where the film seemed to drag on a little, but this is only a minor complaint as when it was good, it really was very good. 

Verdict

Although not perfect, Iron Man 3 is a very entertaining and fun movie, with a much deeper story and cast of characters than I was expecting. It's definitely worth seeing at full cinema price,  living quite nicely up to the hype it has received. One final thing: it's a good idea to stay till after the credits for a nice bonus scene and line of writing which will no doubt get many talking about what more is to come.       8/10