Iron Man 3-It isn't just about A Man In A Can. Man.

Shane Black.  I'll be honest, I completely forgot he directed the original Lethal Weapon, which is one of the best, most iconic action movies of the 80s.   And if it is one thing that movie did well, was give it's action heart and soul and even some brains, through its well drawn out characters who drew you in.  If you wanted something more than a bullet ballet, which I always do, Lethal Weapon   gave that to you in it's mismatched buddy cops, one an ageing street warrior looking forward to retirement, the other a mental basket case, a ticking time bomb full of trauma just waiting for the right spark to explode all over everyone and everything.

Shane Black gets the human element, how it is important to show the toll of events in an action adventure story, that they have lasting repercussions beyond the end of the events themselves.  That they wear at the body and soul, and that the human element has it's limits and to be pushed beyond it introduced a new crisis to overcome. 

This is what has happened to Tony Stark as a result of the events in The Avengers.  He has come through some incredible events and has met some extraordinary people that have shaken his world to the core.  He now knows the full scale of the truth of things in his world and he is having trouble dealing with it.  To reconnect to what is human in his life would be the better therapy, but instead, he is going in reverse, building more barriers, especially in his new armor designs.  So when a particular mistake out of his past reasserts itself and a man called The Mandarin comes calling, he is thrown out into the cold and must reconnect with the essentials.

Now, this film did some amazing things.  From the prologue monologue from the jump (which worked VERY well in the post credits scene) to the superspy feel much of the rest had, most excellent.  The kid was not nearly as annoying and as precious as he could have been, and I think that it is because Black knows what makes kid characters work without being all sentimental and gushy about it, kind of like how Stephen King writes Jake in the Gunslinger  books.  And yes, seeing Tony Stark operate a great amount without his armor was awesome to me.  It has happened in the books and it worked very well here, showing he has skills, talents and guts not dependent on the suit.

Oh yes, great to see Pepper getting in on the action and rocking both armor and a black sports bra.

The one big negative in my book?  The way the Mandarin was portrayed.  I grow so tired of hearing about how the comic version is a stereotype.  There are all kinds of ways to go with his Asian origins without retreating to the Fu Manchu tropes.  All kinds of ways, that is, if you have a little imagination and don't get all PC'ed out. 

And that's how good I thought IM3 was.  Not many superhero movies could fou