The best thing is, it´s considerably better than IM2. It doesn´t have to serve as a trailer for Avengers so the story isn´t too boggled down by forced connections to the Marvel Universe, although it did have one thing that bugged me a little. But more on that later.
As Tony himself sums up, the point of the movie is Iron Man is Tony Stark, even if he didn´t have his big house and all his toys. After the destruction of his mansion, he´s strung out and forced to rely on other people´s help and his wits to figure out what´s going on and fight his enemies. Tony is much more MacGyver than James Bond in this one, constantly improvising his solutions. "I´m a mechanic, I fix things" is his motto.
RDJ brings his usual charms and wit that turned the character from B-list superhero to pop culture icon.
One thing about his arc I didn´t care much for was the sudden anxiety attacks he was having over the wormhole fall in Avengers. Tony had plenty of opportunities to develop PTSD in the previous two movies. It felt like a somewhat contrived way to remind the audience of the events in The Avengers, since they have nothing to do with this one´s plot.
It´s Tony´s past before he became Iron Man what really comes to haunt him in IM3. A couple of scientists he didn´t help back in his carefree bachelor days come up with the Extremis Virus, pretty much the same concept as the one in the Warren Ellis comic book.
Worse, that invention is unstable and being used in terrorist bomb attacks by The Mandarin, in this version portrayed as a Bin Laden-like terrorist... or so it seems. More on that later. Even now that he´s a (mostly) changed man, Tony can´t escape that he´s always been his own worst enemy, bringing up the threats that Iron Man must fight.
The cast is all-around great with a special nod to Guy Pearce, an actor who´s been kinda fallen to the sidelines in recent years and now has a shot at being big, and he earns it. Aldrich is in equal parts charming and suave and a perverted lunatic.
Shane Black brings his usual wit to the procedure. This probably has more humor than either of the first two movies. Sometimes it works for great effect, like Tony teasing Aldrich´s henchmen of his imminent spectacular escape... that takes forever to happen.
But there are times that it´s a little too much, like a gag that happens after what should have been the saddest, most dramatic moment in the movie. Nobody´s asking an Iron Man movie to be as dark and gritty as a Dark Knight Trilogy one, but there are good and bad moments for jokes.
Now, there is a HUGE twist in this movie. One that is sure to cause a ton of debate among the fanboys. It´s impossible to discuss the movie without talking about it. If you don´t wanna know, stop reading now.
I´m telling you, it´s a biggie.
Still here? You were warned.
Theeeeere it goes, seriously now:
You thought Doctor Doom becoming a Norman Osborn knock-off with Electro powers embarrassed the character? You saw nothing. After months of trailers tantalizing us with Mandarin being this powerful, commanding villain portrayed with major gravitas by Sir Ben Kingsley... it turns out he´s not even real. This Mandarin is a made up terrorist played by a pathetic junkie actor that Aldrich created to "supply both the offer and demand" for his weapons manufacturing.
Now, I get the political satire point of this. The weapons industry feeds on American hunger for political enemies. I also get it that Mandarin was a racist stereotype, a Fu Manchu kinda villain. In spite of being IM´s better known enemy in the comics, he´s never been a Joker or a Lex Luthor. But if you´re gonna change the character so way beyond recognition, why even bother using him? Why show the ten rings if they are useless? Just make up a Bin Laden-like terrorist and name him Tin Laiden or whatever.
Also, I don´t wanna be a pain about plot holes, God knows how sick I am of the logic police, a fantasy/sci-fi film will always stretch reality in some way or another. But there is one big glaring thing. Tony isn´t strung out in, say, North Pole or North Korea or even a large deserted area Alaska. He´s in an American city in Tennesse.
Even if his house and most of his armors were destroyed, he´s still a billionaire, owner and sleeping with the CEO of a major corporation. He had access to a phone to talk to Pepper. He spent a long chunk of the movie there. Clearly he´d have better resources at his disposal in a short time and he wouldn´t need a poor kid and a slightly deranged fan´s help.
Overall, I say IM3 is an improvement over the second installment, but my favorite one in the series still is the first.
7,5 OUT OF 10