Iron Man 3

The summer season is upon us, and what better way to kick off the most fun part of the year than with a super hero movie? Last year, we had The Avengers, the year before that, we had Thor, this year, we have another installment in the Marvel canon, Iron Man 3. By now, you've probably heard the movie getting some mixed reviews. Some love it, while others say it's the worst thing since Batman and Robin. But don't worry, I'm here to tell you the truth: This movie is actually pretty freaking awesome.

People will hate me for saying that, but wait til they here this: Iron Man 3 is my favorite of the 3 movies revolving around Tony Stark. I could already feel the heat of the hatred of a thousand angry fanboys burning my veins as I typed out that sentence. But it's the truth, 3 times really is a charm in this case. However, I can see how fanboys would rage at this movie. I had a friend tell me that his one problem with my blog is that there are times where I am too apologetic to the fans I'm insulting, but in this case, I am being absolutely legitimite, I feel for the fans. The reason being that there is a twist halfway through the movie that practically rewrites the story and changes the perspective on one of its key characters. Specifically, The Mandarin, played by Ben Kingsley. I'm not going to say what they did with the character, but I'll put it to you this way, if they had pulled that sort of thing with The Joker or Bane in a Batman movie, I would boil with furious anger, yell so loud that I would practically Fus-ro-dah the screen into oblivion (one movie I refuse to see because of Tom Cruise's presence), and storm out and beat the shit out of the manager until he gave me back my money. However, they didn't do that to my favorite character, and for the movie, I thought it really worked well.

The other high point of the movie is the always great Guy Pearce, who I should really just call Douche Bag, because let's be honest, Guy Pearce can play a douche bag like no other. Even his face is just one of those that I just want to punch, it's so smug. He plays the only other scientist with swag besides Tony Stark, Aldrich Killian, inventor of a drug called Extremis, which helps wounded people heal and replace dead tissue. Or is that all it does? It's not, it makes them super strong and turns them into fire benders from Avatar: the Last Airbender. That sounds stupid, and I thought that at first, but then I considered how awesome it would be to make someone's face melt just by touching it, and I learned to just run with the idea.

The movie itself is really enjoyable. It was written and directed by Shane Black, who penned the screenplay for the Lethal Weapon movies, as well as directed and wrote the criminally underrated Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and his style of writing really shows in the dialogue. I think he is one of the only screenwriters who is able to make an action movie with alot of humor and still make it feel primarily like an action film. In the same way that The Dark Knight is a drama with a crap load of action, Iron Man 3 is an action movie with a crap load of humor. And much like the other Avengers tie-ins, it does enough to remind us that it's part of a bigger universe, while still allowing it to stand on its own and not feel like a sequel to Thor or any of the other movies.

Final Grade: A-, See it again and buy it on Blu Ray