This is a movie that is difficult to talk about without acknowledging its place in movie history, namely being the first direct sequel that is not a direct sequel. If you were to sit down and watch Iron Man 1, 2 and 3 you would be missing a big piece of the puzzle. As such this movie is a stunning piece of entertainment, with a few nagging oddities that keep it from being truly great.
In the cold open I could have sworn that I was watching "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang" again, it reeked of that screenplay. In fact the entire movie stunk of Kiss, which is not a bad thing as I think by this juncture Robert Downey Jr. and Shane Black have a very good grasp on who Tony Stark is. Here we also deal with an existential crisis inside Tony's mind that is never really fleshed out, just allusions to The Avengers fallout.
It's in this idea that much of the oddities spring up from, and I say oddities when I really mean plot holes. The threat here is "small" enough that it would not warrant the calling together of super humans and demi-gods, it's still large enough that you think someone would pick up the phone to ask for help. There's a scene where Tony is stranded in Tennessee with a powerless Iron Man suit and he calls Pepper to apologize and calls no one else. I know, this is a comic book movie and there needs to be some kind of disconnect, but it just came across as "How many ways can we find to keep Robert's face up on the screen?"
This all leads to the bigger issue brought on by my previous complaint: It totally makes for a great movie. There are more quiet moments where we really get to see Robert have fun with the character, namely his interaction with a young boy in Tennessee. Robert owns the screen while he's up there, you can understand why they wanted to keep him out of the suit.
As for the rest? There is serviceable material here by the rest of the cast. Standing out is Sir Ben Kingsley in one of the better twists I have seen in a movie. His "Mandarin" turned out to be a lovely red herring, and all of the issues fan boys had with the portrayal in the trailers was subjectively thrown in our faces. On the other side of the coin was Paltrow's Pepper Potts (Alliteration!) which had a very strange journey from damsel in distress to one of the movie's more unintentionally funny moments as she "learned ninjitsu or some kung fu junk" and beat the bad guy in the end. Odd.
Final Word: I had a lot of fun watching this movie, enough fun that I overlooked some plot holes and choices resulting in a very fun, if uneven, blockbuster.
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