At least it was better than Iron Man 2.

But that isn't saying much, I guess...

Iron Man 3 marks the jumping off point for Marvel studios new phase of post-Avengers films. This particular film is a dazzling, action packed feature that serves as a glimpse of what's to come from Marvel, AND the life of billionaire/playboy/superhero Tony Stark.

Every hero goes through their own little existential crisis. They question their values and they start to see the damage that being a superhero possibly does to their personal life. This isn't something that is specific to dark and brooding characters like Batman, but instead almost every superhero big and small. Even second rate heroes like Iron Fist occasionally doubt their purpose as a hero. This common theme is what Iron Man 3 seems to capitalize off of. The logo is rusted and chipped and the trailers are ominous and full of stressful scenarios. Going into the theater we know that life isn't too great for Tony Stark. And Iron Man 3 makes its first mistake by not maximizing this setup's potential. Tony has a few anxiety attacks and breaks down to Pepper in a couple scenes but he never really convinces us he is down in the dumps. Tony seems to pretty much entirely forget about his anxiety problem and he always seems like the same old lovable prick we know him to be. There is nothing new from Robert Downey Jr here. The movie wants us to think that Tony is hurting but RDJ is having too much fun with the role so we never really feel like its even a problem. Fun seems to be the major distraction here and on that front, Iron Man 3 is a monster success.

If you can overlook the mediocre and poorly utilized story, the idiotic plot points and over reliance on humor, you are still left with an immensely entertaining summer flick. It's got good special effects and large set pieces but personally they never really pulled me in. They were clunky and messy. I felt like someone was shooting me in the face with a Roman candle. The 42 suit battle at the end was pretty neat but everything was moving so fast and the screen was filled with so much shit, that as soon as the suits made their dramatic entrance and everyone went "woo!" the scene immediately went downhill. The action slowed a little bit to show specific suits and that was nice. But overall it was just a big sloppy spectacle of CGI and fanboy orgasms. Seeing the Extremis story line (kind of) brought to life was probably pretty cool for fans who read Iron Man but I think it made a lousy jump to film. The extremist infected villains were campy and I found myself laughing when they were on screen. My laughter soon turned to disgust when Pepper Pots became infected and started fighting Guy Pearce as a superhuman bionic woman. Ehhh. Jesus Christ. There are certain things like that that should stay in the pages of a comic book.

For the most part, Iron Man 3 was a fun summer movie but sadly nothing more. It's pretty empty and even Shane Black's witty writing and self reflecting narrative style couldn't really save it from itself. It's big, loud and stupid. At least The Avengers knew its audience exactly and didn't pretend to be anything more. It was great in its effective simplicity. If this is a sign of things to come for Marvel movies, I think I'm a little skeptical. I don't know why summer blockbusters and movies in general try to out-do one another with massive scale and trying to find the next cool set piece to blow up. I found myself enjoying Tony Starks humorous and heartfelt conversations with the little boy he meets in Tennessee more than the big dumb "we have to save da Prezident!!!" scenes. I feel like I'm going to be in the minority but I want superhero movies to become smaller. But who wants to listen to me anyways.... Despite my cynicism, I had a good time with this one and honestly, I always feel pretty silly when I find myself picking apart superhero films. Thats not what theyre for. Sure you can long for a more fulfilling experience but at the end of the day, its as simple as superheroes punching the bad guy and everyone wins.

At least this time around there wasn't a robot suit fight scene set to a remixed version of "Another One Bites the Dust."

Oh god why...