In the superhero movie genre the 3rd film has always been an Achilles heel for many franchises.
From the original Superman trilogy to the original Spiderman trilogy to The Blade and the original X-Men trilogy, their third movies were all stinkers. They lacked the character and depth of their predecessors. They lacked freshness or a story that builds on what has been introduced.
The Dark Knight Rises was able to dodge the bad third movie curse and I'm glad to say Iron Man 3 has too, in fact it's better than Iron Man 2.
Iron Man 3 brings back Robert Downey Jnr as Tony Stark - the movie takes place after the events we saw in the Avengers movie and all is not well with Tony Stark. Yet instead of making it a heavy character study, the humour and irreverance of Iron Man I is still there.
The script is co-written by Shane Black, the man who penned the Lethal Weapon movies and the quickwitted Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. He infuses Iron Man with his trademark wit and irreverance that Tony Stark had in the first movie that we all loved. While still giving the movie a chance to comment on real world events - unlike Avengers.
On the flipside, Shane Black and co. are not ashamed to analyze the idea of terrorism in the US today and how it works. From both the terrorist and powers that be - without making Iron Man feel like a thesis and meditation on terrorism.
The action sequences are there in spades and, dare I say, there are proper twists that are worthy of Kick Ass the movie, that I won't be surprised to see more movies copying - twists like they did with the capture of the Joker in The Dark Knight.
Downey is Iron Man. The movie interrogates who and what Iron man is and it's cool to watch Downey move from the comedy to the dramatic to the bizarre as Tony Stark.
Do yourself a favour and watch this movie - it's a fun watch that's well packaged and builds on what Iron Man 1 had done that Iron Man 2 almost destroyed. It showcases a sharp witted ordinary man in a suit who uses his bravado as a shield and has to learn to let go of his crutches on the route to self actualization. Yep it's that good.