this film sends me into a near murderous rage. an awful way to cash grab at the series.  it'll probably appeal to the transformers fans though as it has lots of things blow up even if it's mindless and i dont care about any of the characters. as dave said, montage out and everythings fine...

It's getting fantastic reviews. I haven't seen it yet. Honest question, what do you think the critics are seeing in it that you guys don't?

trying to write coherantly isn't my strong point, hence why i dont post much on here or any forum.  there is too much to list for me but i didnt get out of the cinema before it annoyed me. there are characters who are introduced to give a funny slap stick punch line and go nowhere, a kid missing his dad to give it some emotional grounding as there isnt any really in the main story who does nothing other thanhelp out by escaping from a situation that was only causedy him being there,, it feels like a contrivance as the whole plot serves no puropose oter than an excuse for a feel good clip in the afformentioned everything's fine montage at the end.
The main protagonist and his minions are able to tear dozens of iron man suits apart with their bare hands and survive explosions and occasionally being blown up and regrowing half their heads (depending on whats needed sometimes they survive a 3000 degree explosion and others dies when a sparky microwave ignites a bit of gas after walking through an inferno) not to mention suddenly Guy can breath fire for one scene that never comes back. All this and suddenly super fire ninja pepper kicks his ass and wins.

Im not great at articulating why i really, dislike this film, its disjointed, setups arent paid off some payoffs have no setup and never occur again, suddenly tony has an army of ai iron man suits that are all fully functioning when tony jumps into them and fully autonomus as well as seemingly made of aluminium foil (bad guys tear them apart with their bare hands cause they're hot i guess) and the kit even breaks off a finger from one of the suits...

rant over, there is plenty more that i dont like but as mentioned man times on theis site your milage may vary, did not work for me at all and the fact it had glimmers of great lines or the odd entertaining scene made the fact it was so bad much worse.  im done, bloody hate typing but have soo many more prblems with this film.....

Why so, lab?

As a skydiver, yep the falling scene was fun to watch. not remotely feasable but well captured (good luck talking to anyone in freefall and i won't bother asking how the "i'll electrify your arm so you cant let go" bit worked).  again its the fact it has good moments that make me more dissapointed with the overall film.  i dont expect any type of reality from an iron man film but i do want some level of consistency with the two other films and the avengers since its mentioned constantly throuought IM3. we have had previously a fight between iron man and Thor which was hard fought though Thor clearly had the upper hand being a literal god and all. now we have Guy Pearce (go aussie) and his minions who can shred the iron man suit with no effort which is something the god of thunder wasn't able to do and why, because they are hot??. If it was a stand alone film no problem but it's not, it has 3 films worth of hstory behind it and contradicts a hell of a lot of what came before it.

Tony having the panic attacs because of the new york thing was a nice touch but nothing comes of it, it allows him to have a moment with an inconsequential character (the kid) who tells him to build something then he's fine the rest of the film. I dont care about the random kid he meets, he does nothing to progress the story, neither does ben kingsly but at least the argument there can be made that he's the macguffin of the film.

I saw it and the overall feeling was "meh". I felt almost exactly like I felt leaving Oblivion. Not a waste of 2 hours, but I've already forgotten it and I don't really think I'll ever watch it again. Maybe it's just the fact that I am not a comic book reader, and after 3 movies of Iron Man destroying things the novelty has worn off.

But also I hate it when consistency is disregarded just to serve the plot. In the first movie the Iron Man suit is almost indestructible. And in this one the suits are made of cardboard. It takes the movie from "Oh yeah, Stark is in the suit, now to wreck some shit" to "Being in a suit means he can fly, no other advantages".

The main villains are, atleast in my mind, the biggest "oh really?"-moment I've had in a while. Maybe I cannot completely disconnect reality when watching live-action movies, even if they are based on comic books where science and logic sometimes go out the window, but Guy Pearce repeatedly heats himself up to 3000 degrees, enough to melt steel, and yet his pants stay on. And his tattoo on his chest somehow stays intact aswell? Also the justification for being able to heat himself up to 3000 degrees is "something-something-DNA-upgrade". F--- you.

And yeah, the end is rushed, and the "my girlfriend was a firebreathing DNA-enhanced mega-demon for a while, but I fixed her, it's what I do" moment was also incomprehensibly lazy.

Also Tony's anxiety attacks have no bearing on anything. 2-3 times he freaks out a little but it seems to be there literally just to give him some kind of dimension. In the 1st film he became Iron Man, big arc. 2nd one he and his relationship with his father was the focus. Here his girlfriend gets kidnapped and he has anxiety attacks that are used for comedic effect.

I don't know, I think I'm more or less done with these types of movies overall. It seems you need to read the comics or additional material to get a deeper connection with the characters. Watching the movies, after the origins story and the occasional gem of character study and plot structure (Dark Knight, Avengers), there isn't much more to gather from them. Things blow up in slow motion. Seen it.

While I hated captain electrowhip, I hate mr burning more (but both still pale in comparison to how much I detest flambé Pepper).

If only that were the biggest issue with the film, right?

A child ripped one of the suits fingers off. It was made of tin foil and sticky tape. Structurally, it probably wouldn't have supported an arc thing (I have no idea)?