I just saw the film today and thank god I haven't been following it like I had been with TDKR or Man of Steel cause I think it would have disappointed me big time. Now I'm not someone to go in and immediately notice illogical points/holes in a film but for me in IM3 (more than any other film I think I've ever seen) then stuck out like sore thumb left-right-and-centre.
Yes TDKR may have had big flaws as well but the story was very engaging and had bucket loads of emotion as well. Here it was like the characters would say/do one thing and then 2 scenes later do something that completely contradicted it. A few examples -
- Rhodey can't use the suits cause they are modeled to Stark yet two scenes later he flings one on to Killian
- He has one suit to fix but then we find out he has a ****ton at home he could have used.
- Killian can't die from being the center of an explosion. Next scene. Dies from an explosion.
- Stark says he can't live without Pepper... so then he pretty much asks the Mandarin to attack his house where there is about a 90% chance she'll be with absolutely no defence plans whatsoever. Golly gee.
The word I would use to describe Iron Man 3 and as stupid as this sound... is silly. It was just silly. It seemed like Tony could be in a prison cell, miles under the deepest ocean and dead and a suit would be there to save him!! Seriously people may hate the lack of Iron Man in this film but for me he was just doing things with it where I was thinking "woah really?". Jumping into it with pinpoint accuracy? That's gotta hurt? I don't think there is padding in those things. It was just a big step away from what we had seen in the previous two movies. In The Avengers when the entire suit straps on to him I thought it looked great and could see it completely working, here though it just seemed over the top from what had been established before.
The villains are the same as well. Stanes and Ivan were just people. People who's power was from something external like Stanes' Iron Man suit or the big whip suit Vanko created (not familiar with Iron Man lore sorry

). Here it was almost supernatural-esque. People who can breath fire. Fine if it's in The Avengers but for me it didn't fit with the individual Iron Man film and is very jarring to the last two. Especially when you go from Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer to James Badge Dale's immortal sidekick.
Again it may sound stupid but this film felt more like a spin-off to The Avengers than developing the Stark story from Iron Man 1 and 2. Just little things were missing. No crashing IRON MAN 3 title card. No ACDC (a BIG miss for me). Completely new Iron Man theme. No mention of Hammer who swore he'd be back of Hammer Industries. Straight away as it started I was like "ohhhh something is off here".
The Mandarin twist was okay but I think the fact that I adored Kingsley in the first half of the film was the reason I disliked it. Kingsley though sold the actor side to me though, he was a master in that scene and just about swayed me but initially I couldn't help but feel "come on guys... seriously?".
The only complaint I have about the complaints of this film is the "oh if the avengers have already been established where are the avengers now? Huh? HUH? HUUUUUHHHH?". Well this is an Iron Man movie... kinda ruins it if you have Thor and Cap' come in and steal his thunder. The individual films wont work if you just have the other guys come in and help out at the last second.
The action was good, the acting was very good but everything else, dunno just didn't fit for me.
6.5/10