Iron Man 3

Well, this movie was dreadful.

When taking in the Marvel movie series as a whole, the Iron Man films stand out to me as not quite fitting in. They just aren't as fun. They just aren't as faithful to the source material. They just aren't... any good. Then again, they are the biggest hits of the bunch, so what do I know? I just spent the last three decades of my life reading Marvel comics and watching comic book movies. That doesn't make me any more of an expert on what's good or bad than somebody who has never read a comic or seen a movie, but it did lead me to the opinion that Iron Man 3 was as bad a comic book movie -- dare I say... just as bad a movie in general -- as any I've ever seen. You know... it was dreadful.

I don't recall Tony Start being a narcissist in the comics, at least not to the extent we are shown in these films. Nor do I recall him being so self-destructive or toxic to every other person in his life. That's not Iron Man, that's Ralph Kramden. I guess what I'm saying is that in the comics, Iron Man is actually a hero, while in these films he's just an asshole who occasionally uses his suit to stop people from harming Iron Man or Tony Stark's company.

Sure, in the comics Tony Start fought personal demons, but he overcame that and they defined him as hero. In the films he has demons too, and even though he overcomes then at the end of each film, the subsequent films begin right back with him being the same asshole drunk who only thinks about himself.

In the Avengers film, Stark actually was kind of a hero toward the end and fought for something other than saving himself, but but in the solo movies, it's just Tony Stark being threatened, and then using Iron Man to save himself. And in each film, there is less and less Iron Man at all. This movie had maybe fifteen minutes of Stark in the actual suit. Most of the rest of the film was either just Tony Stark by himself, or with a suit that was radio (or whatever) controlled remotely. Iron Man doesn't use robots!

But the worst thing about this movie is that it's just so boring. Nothing happens for most of the movie and the overall story was so poorly told I never really knew what was happening or cared about anything. I also heard a lot of people describe this film as dark, but I didn't see that at all. It's actually a wild, farcical comedy, and none of it was funny.

I mean, what is there to say about a movie where Gwyneth Paltrow has a better action sequence in the Iron Man armor than Tony Stark himself? Oh yeah... that it's dreadful.