Mandarin is a Big Joke! (Iron Man 3)

I'm going to write and post directly without a draft for this one. This is probably the most SPOILER-HEAVY of all the reviews I made. I'm in a hurry and I just want to tell that there's something new and also something old in this 3rd installment. It's either you like it or you don't.

First, Tony Stark narrates everything from start to finish. This is an improvement I think. Including the easter egg part at the end. Though this movie will never run out of destruction and stunts, I think the greatest worry for the viewer after watching this film is about what's going to happen to Pepper Potts? Or was it highly intentional to build up the hype for Iron Man 4? The quick cure from the Extremis formula, at the same speed of removing the shrapnel in Tony's chest is a big shortcut and kills the Iron Man tradition of living with a terrible burden. Well, this is not comics.

AIM Extremis soldiers attacking Stark's pad in Malibu is a giveaway for the usual "secret" enemy. Mandarin is a big joke. I wanted to see his ten powerful magic rings just like in the comics. I wanted to see him as a puppeteer and not a puppet. I was wrong. Dead wrong. My assumption that Mandarin is Iron Man's arch-enemy died because the only power that Mandarin can inflict to his enemy is the fart-sounding belch after drinking a can of beer. Watching the trailer gave me the creeps about the antagonist, but the revelation in the whole duration killed the thrill.

Luckily, the overused damsel-in-distress scenario got a reprieve by giving Pepper Potts the power to save her man. This movie has a lot of plus and minus points and rating it becomes highly subjective. For a 6-year old kid, he probably sees that everything is magic and awesome. Me, I would give it a score lower than the first movie, and much lower than Avengers last year. I think of all the 3 Iron Man movies, this one caters to the much younger viewers. Just look at the soundtrack. No AC/DC and Black Sabbath. So sad.

Here's my quick list to summarize the overall story:

1. View from Tony Stark perspective 

2. Demons from the past plot
3. Terrorist Agenda
4. The Hero suffers from anxiety after the New York (Avengers)incident

5. Mandarin as a decoy

6. Nerd kid assists the Hero
7. The girlfriend saves her boyfriend

8. The Hero declares to abandon his work, and his toys 

9. The Hero reconsiders and says "I'll be back!"

The easter egg I'm referring here by the way is the scene (usually for all Marvel hero films lately) that shows Tony Stark doing a psycho-babble discussion with his fellow Avenger Dr. Bruce Banner. It's an assurance that there will be a sequel. And whether if the sequel (Part 4) becomes a story of Tony Stark, or the story of Iron Man remains to be seen. Everybody wants to see the story of Iron Man, not Tony Stark.

Genre: Action, Superhero

Rating: 70%