Iron Man 3

PLOT:
Tony Stark/Iron Man (played by Robert Downey Jr.) has been having a hard time going to sleep after the events in New York. Memories of aliens and gods fighting keep him awake but just the mention of the events will give him severe anxiety attacks. His solution to not being able to sleep is to build a new Iron Man suit that will allow him to control it from outside the suit with just his thoughts. Only problem is the suit has some minor glitches that won't allow it have flight at times as well as falling to pieces when hit by something. As Tony's world seems to be crushing in on him, he makes a declaration to a world terrorist the Mandarin (played by Ben Kingsley) that he is going to find him and take him down. Though what Tony Stark don't realize is that an someone he met in his younger days has created a company that is working with the Mandarin to take control of the U.S. Government from the inside. Using a new weapon called Extremis, Aldrich Killian (played by Guy Pearce), he has been able to tear apart Iron Man, kidnap Pepper Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow), and take control of the Iron Patriot suit from James Rhodes (played by Don Cheadle). This might be the fight that just brings an end to Iron Man if Tony Stark can't figure out a way to get control of his emotions.

ACTING:
Once more Robert Downey Jr. shows the world that he is the perfect person to be playing the role of Tony Stark. He looks like the character from the comics, though that has nothing to do with the acting but it does play into it making the character he is supposed to be more authentic, but he seems to act like Tony Stark. He has had time to perfect this character, he really is Iron Man or I should say Tony Stark. I rank this movie as the third best of the trilogy but it's not for the lack of acting. Everyone gives an excellent performance in this movie, from Gwyneth Paltrow bringing the stern business woman to her character while Jon Favreau makes Happy Hogan a funny character that I wanted more of.

However, the best performance given in this movie was by Ben Kingsley. Before the movie was released I tried my best to avoid spoilers but there where some articles that I read that gave away some hints about Kingsley being the Mandarin who might not be the Mandarin we comic fans know him to be. I just assumed that meant they would do something about the magic rings, which they did, or didn't do considering they didn't use them as magic rings like the comic book version of the character does. But that was not the surprise that Kingsley had with his character, it was who he really turned out to be that had Kingsley playing two different personalities/roles for the one character. His ability to make one version of the Mandarin look so evil and powerful to showing him as the guy who can barely keep his eyes open was so great. It's Ben Kingsley who made this movie into one that I want to watch again and again just so I can see him play his character.

STORY:
As I said above, Iron Man 3 ranks as third in this trilogy because of the story. There are moments that even though this is a movie about a guy in a metal suit that flies around fighting in it is supposed to suspend belief, I still can't with certain scenes. When Tony Stark is attacked in his home there are missles that explode in front of him and Pepper Potts, the building it blowing apart, they go flying across the room, and all that happens is he gets a bloody nose. If that happened they would have been dead right then, the blast force alone that threw them across the room would have crushed their chests in, but they get up from it with some dust on their clothes, a cut on his nose, and away they went. They also don't go into any real detail about what Aldrich Killian was going to do once he got control of the government. I know he's the villain of the story, I know he wants money, but it just seems to be skimmed over what he's really doing so that they can show him fighting Iron Man. Which I also didn't care much for, the fights look awesome, but if a man has the power to generate that much heat to make metal turn molten so quickly then that same heat would have affected the man in the suit, at least the melted metal would have burnt Tony Stark.

I did like how they would mention the events from the Avengers movie as to explain why Tony Stark is having problems. It has a lot of moments that I really enjoyed, the characters are well developed, but I only rank this one third because there's just too much going on in the movie. We are shown that Tony Stark has been making a lot of Iron Man suits but when they are finally shown at the end it's only for quick glimpses as they fly around fighting. Having the Extremis was really cool but what was the point of the Mandarin? Sure I think this role was the best one in the whole movie but he was just a minor side note that could have been used as headlines in the news with no actual actor playing him. And I really love that they wanted to go out with a bang with all the fights but I think the fights where overshadowing the other stories like Tony Stark freaking out all the time, Pepper Potts having the Extremis, and what was the full plan of Aldrich Killian. Though the most disappointing part of this movie for me was the end credit scene. Marvel has made it known that they will have a small scene at the end of the credits for each movie and in the past those scenes gave hints leading to the next movie and Avengers. This end scene was pointless, wasn't interesting, and gives no hint to anything coming in Wave 2.

CGI/EFFECTS:
One thing I can't say anything negative about this movie was the special effects. It's simply amazing to watch this movie with all the different Iron Man suits going around, the glowing bodies of the Extremis people, all of it just looks amazing and real. I've watched this movie quite a few times at this point, both at the theater and on Blu Ray and I can't spot any moments when the CGI didn't look real. There might be flaws here but I didn't see any.

BLU RAY:
If you are at the store wondering about saving a few dollars by buying the DVD version of this movie of the Blu Ray, that would be a unwise choice. Spend that extra bit of money because this Blu Ray does not disappoint. This HD movie is just that, high definition, in all it's glory, this is what a Blu Ray is supposed to look like. The suits shine when they are new and the detail is astounding when the suits get tore apart. Colors are bright, they show off every detail both the real details of an actors face to the details that have been created with a computer. This is a sharp looking picture with audio levels that have been mixed to sound perfect. There's even a new short that was created for this Blu Ray that I found quite enjoyable. Though the gag reel wasn't all that funny.