IRON MAN THREE

2014, superhero, fantasy, adventure,

At a New Year's Eve party in 1999, the future Iron Man TONY STARK (Robert Downey Jr), meets an entrepreneur, ALDRICH KILLIAN, who asks for Tony’s support. Tony agrees to meet him on the roof under the fireworks, but instead spends the night with MAYA HANSEN, the inventor of EXTREMIS, a treatment to regenerate lost limbs. However, Extremis has some, ah, strange side effects.

Fast forward several years, and a terrorist called MANDARIN who looks suspiciously like Osama Bin Ladin is setting off bombs in American cities. Officialdom has no clue as to who Mandarin is, how he is setting off the bombs, or even what kind of bombs he uses. Tony tells COLONEL JAMES RHODES he can help the government find Mandarin, but Rhodes rebuffs him.

Tony then issues a public challenge to the Mandarin. Maya Hansen visits Tony's Malibu mansion under the disapproving eyes of Tony's current girlfriend, PEPPER POTTS (hey-I didn’t name her). Maya tells Tony she thinks her boss, Aldrich Killian, is supporting the Mandarin. At that point helicopter gunships attack and destroy Tony’s house. Tony, Pepper, and Hansen manage to escape, but JARVIS, Tony's artificial intelligence robot, sends Tony via his latest Iron Man suit across the country to Tennessee, where the robot thinks the Mandarin is located. Tony's suit, damaged in a crash landing, no longer works and his only help is a ten-year-old boy, HARLEY.

Then matters get complicated.

Did I mention, Tony is also suffering panic attacks from when he fought off aliens in New York?

Plenty of good action sequences and unexpected plot twists, but one of the best aspects of the flick is Tony’s continued one liners. Whether people are about to beat the shit out of him or he’s arguing with Pepper, he always has a snide rejoinder which is so inappropriate as to be funny. Yes, the science is bogus, and yes, there is no character development except at the end where he suddenly conquers his anxieties, but so what. The dialogue is snappy and the pace is good. The only part I really didn’t like was the callous way he treats the boy, Harley.

All in all, this is a fun movie, definitely better than the first of the series.  I give it ++++.  It should get your pulse up to a run. Downey is vacillating on to still another sequel, but if he agrees, I’ll watch that also.