Iron Man 3

Ratings: 9.2/10

Film Class: A

Genre: Superhero Action

Iron Man 3 was well worth the wait, the anticipation and hype that it built up in the past few months leading up to its official release. A note of caution though, what you see in the trailer will not be what you get in the movie. I'm going to include this important spoiler right at the start of my review, because throughout the show, I was hoping to hear some of the catchy lines spoken by the cast featured in the trailer but somehow they never made it to the big screens.

I believe the movie was massively cut due to its long runtime of 130mins, and would probably be one of the plus factors in getting the DVD with the extras in it. Either that, or the director attempted at something rather bold yet refreshing, the game of deceit right from the very beginning of a typical movie experience, the trailers. In fact, director Shane Black did just that. Huh? You might be wondering what in world am I talking about? This contradicting opinion is intended, you'll have to watch the movie to know what I mean, without giving too much away, I'm just wondering if it's the whole package (lines + scenes) or just the main gist. 

I did come home to rewatch the trailers to affirm my suspicion, and true enough, it wasn't just the lines, but some of the scenes in the trailer was cut from the movie as well. Hmm... in a way, I felt rather cheated. 

The setting and timeline of Iron Man 3 is post-Avengers, meaning it would help with piecing up some bits of the story and keeping up with some of the conversations exchanged if you caught the Avengers movie prior to watching Iron Man 3. After uniting and coming together towards a common enemy in the Avengers, the superheroes return to their "normal" lives. Here, Tony Starch, the man behind the suit, is no longer the fearless man he once was, suffering from anxiety attacks whenever he thinks back to his near-death battle with "aliens" in the Avengers movie and is hence obsessed with perfecting his technology, to protect the one person which matters most to him, his personal assistant cum lover Pepper Potts.

His world turns upside down when he openly challenged a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, which was broadcast Live across the country. After his home, stored with all his work and research was blown up into smithereens and left for dead, Tony Starch must rely on primitive technology and his wits to battle his greatest nemesis of all time. 

*spoiilers ahead*

Iron Man 3's plot, build up, action scenes and scripting were on par with its film class. It aced almost every aspect of what makes a great movie. The opening soundtrack was rather cheesy (Blue, sang by Eiffel 65 which was released in 1998), but exceptionally nostalgic. The plot had an unexpected twist in it, though not as good as the showdown between Joker and Batman in The Dark Knight because in terms of intellect, Tony Starch still beats the Mandarin, unlike in The Dark Knight, the Joker kinda dominated Batman. So it's not going to that dilemmic because the battle was more focused on both of them and involved less hard to make choices because less innocent lives were at stake. 

The build up was steadily engaging, and the pace was just right. There wasn't a moment where it felt draggy, coupled with witty funny lines by the cast in most "interval" scenes, and with well spaced out action scenes which never fails to keep me at the edge of my seats, I'm going to boldy and confidently claim that this is the best paced superhero movie at present. Come to think of it, describing the action scenes as keeping me at the edge of my seats doesn't justify how good they were... in fact they were so good, especially the first big scene, it just took my breaths away, literally. 

*major major spoiler ahead* 

I especially liked the workings of his new prototype, the Mark... er.. 47? Can't remember the exact number, but there's continuity in the mechanics of it throughout the movie. It reinforces the rationale of creating something novel, not just for the sake of it, but there's actually many advantages of doing so as seen and proven during various scenes. 

2 familiar faces also stole a bit of screentime from the charismatic Robert Downey Jr., Rebecca Hall and John Favreau. I thought both of them looked familiar but couldn't put a name to their faces until the credits rolled, and if you're wondering who they are, Rebecca Hall is probably best known for her role in The Prestige, and John Favreau, is an actor cum director who actually directed both Iron Man and Iron Man 2. 

Not forgetting the "usual" cameo by Stan Lee himself, this time, he only enjoys around 3 seconds of screentime and I almost missed it until I heard giggles in the crowd because by then I was already too drawn into the plot... 

But one of the best cameos is by xxx who appeared during the aftercredits scene. Oh, if you're wondering, and which I have already disclosed, there's an aftercredits scene so do hang around till the very end, it'll be worth it, I promise. The aftercredits scene was pretty incredible, and added more sense to the narrative style of the movie. 

Iron Man 3 is easily and undebatably one of the best superhero movies out there, and if you were hugely disappointed by Iron Man 2 and Avengers like I was, fret not, this movie will respark your faith in superhero movies.