Iron Man 3

After Iron Man 2, I was a little dubious about this particular corner of the Avengers franchise. The first movie was excellent, but the second retrod old ground and seemed over-reliant on spectacle and Scarlett Johansen's catsuit. It wasn't terrible, especially not by the overall standards of superhero movies, but the modern standard of superhero movies is now so high that it was a disappointment; perhaps the only one of the current Avengers crop.

So, enter Iron Man 3. In the standard pattern of the superhero trilogy - which I'll discuss in another post sometime - this was the beatdown movie, the one that would push the hero to the limits and then some, and on that score it delivered. Where it first surprised me was in its treatment of Stark's PTSD following the events of The Avengers. Rather than leave the ensemble piece to its own thread, it carried through, in Killian's reference to 'that big guy with the hammer' and the closing cameo, but more critically in the psychological effects of Tony's near-death experience in the vacuum of space.

We see more of Stark and less of Iron Man in this one, and the villains are a deliberate inversion of Stark. Iron Man and Extremis are both about overcoming a weakness, but where Tony Stark channels the inner qualities and strengths he has discovered since his imprisonment through the external shell of his armoured suits, while the Extremis subjects are empowered by something artificial put into them. The film also does an excellent job of inserting its villains into Stark's backstory without feeling like either a complete ass-pull or too much of a Checkov's cast. I also love what they did with the Mandarin.

So, yeah, I enjoyed this film, and for more than the spectacular set pieces. Unlike 2, it really felt as if it was taking the characters forward and it rounded off the trilogy well. Whether there will be more Iron Man movies or whether Stark just returns for future Avengers sequels, I'm excited to see him again - which I never expected to say of Iron Man, any more than I expected to enjoy a Captain America movie - and I truly hope they can keep hold of Downey Jr.