Iron Man 3 Reviews
Top CriticThe trouble is that, as the plot quickens, any cleverness withdraws, to make way for the firecrackers of the climax. That is not Black's forte, and his movie duly slumps into a mess.
Shane Black excels at writing witty, self-referential, pop-infused banter, and there is no actor working today who is better suited to delivering it than Robert Downey Jr.
Iron Man 3 feels like an exploitative mulching of present-day anxieties. The script is ambitious but not wise enough to be rightfully cathartic. It's more Cuisinart than art.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
The action, directed by Shane Black, ranges from passable to interminable.
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| Original Score: C
Black is good at giving his heroes a morbid, self-hating edge and even better at coming up with hateable villains.
After a while, the steady diet of tongue-in-cheek starts to taste monotonous as day-old gum.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Just like he does with those crummy Sherlock Holmes movies, Downey elevates this rather flimsy material with his sheer presence.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
By even posing questions of identity, the film creates the kind of jeopardy we can believe in, and for a superhero movie, that is an accomplishment in and of itself.
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| Original Score: 3.5/5
Snappy dialogue, momentarily startling plot twists and lots of stuff blowing up.
From its anxious protagonist and the battered metal sheaths he dons to save the world to the clattering, fiery mayhem that ensues with metronomic predictability, Iron Man 3 is less a movie than a final war whoop let loose before utter exhaustion sets in.
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| Original Score: 2/4
The third iteration of a franchise that began so well becomes a hollow hymn to martial gadgetry. The suits and story clank in unison.
It's a confidently tongue-in-cheek piece of blockbuster engineering, sweetly calibrated to Downey's cavalier appeal and to Kingsley's oddball interjections.
The action plays like a video game because, well, it may as well be.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
[Black] strikes a tone of pseudo-edgy frat-boy black comedy that's so retro it's almost charming.
The movie is shrewd enough to skitter along so frenetically that nothing, not even tonal contradiction, can stick.
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| Original Score: B
Downey is in fine comic form, especially when he's sparring with young Simpkins, who thankfully throttles back on the precociousness.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
But for all the clanking armies of iron knights on display to dazzle the eager kid in each of us, this summer epic rings hollow. There's no one home inside the suit.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
For the second year in a row, Marvel is starting the summer off with a bang. Let the blockbusters begin, and let's see if they can top this.
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| Original Score: B+
This installment actually flirts with satire, sending its hero-in-a-can on a vengeful mission against a mad, bearded jihadist before yanking the rug out from under the neocon story line. There are some good laughs as well.
It's lightweight but slow, padded with cheap jokes to disguise how hollow it is.
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| Original Score: 2/4
The "Iron Man" films turned Mr. Downey into a huge star, but the role has gradually, maybe inexorably, swallowed him.
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| Original Score: 2.5/5
It balances massive, show-offy effects with hip knowingness and quirky human touches. It's a comic-book world seen not from the viewpoint of a fanboy but a wiseguy adult earthling.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
The rambunctious Iron Man 3 is a briskly paced thrill ride until about 90 minutes in, when the excitement wanes. A few late-breaking surprises re-invigorate the tale, however.
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| Original Score: 3/4
"Iron Man 3" is definitely a big perk-up from the almost-but-not-quite-listless "Iron Man 2"; maybe hanging out with the Avengers was a tonic for him.
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| Original Score: 3/4
The level of acting, at one time viewed as negligible in a superhero movie, is top-notch and no one seems to be mailing it in.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Unfortunately, [its] sharp-eyed domestic comedy is dwarfed by the far less well-written supervillain crime plot that surrounds it.
It sharply fuses the humor and heart of the earlier films with a satisfyingly heavy-metal strength - and a darkness that's more than earned.
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| Original Score: 4/5
The new film's not great, but it's consistently involving because the tonal shifts are so abrupt.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
'Iron Man 3 is one of the best entries in this modern golden age of superhero movies.
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| Original Score: 4/5
Downey is as funny as ever, if not more so. He ensures that Iron Man 3 is a solid installment in the franchise, and helps to make it seem, at least for a time, that it might be something more.
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| Original Score: 3.5/5
It's not without its payoffs; I enjoyed a lot of it. But overall last year's Avengers delivered the bombastic goods more efficiently than this year's Marvel.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
The best scenes are when Stark just cuts impatiently through the claptrap.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Iron Man 3 is an ominously exciting, shoot-the-works comic-book spectacular.
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| Original Score: A-
It's decent popcorn entertainment -- just fine for the summertime, but nothing more than that.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
The usual winks and snarks from Tony Stark, but this edition feels fresher and funnier, thanks to writer- director Shane Black.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Besides rehabbing a hero who overcomes anxiety to save the world and defeat the terror-industrial complex by the simple matter of cloning his body armor, the movie proves that there's still intelligent life on Planet Marvel.
The heavy metal action could never sink the irrepressible Downey, but it weighs down the otherwise light joy of ''Iron Man 3.''
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
The energy bleeds out of the film; it's as if the producers were scared the crowd would riot over not enough digital fakeness.
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| Original Score: 3/5
There's so much dumb stuff in "Iron Man 3" that I expected the credits to say, "Written and directed by Thor."
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
If you're the sort of viewer for whom Black's strengths more than make up for his weaknesses, the best bits of Iron Man 3 will make the lesser stuff worth forgiving -- or at least worth enduring.
The big problems with Iron Man 3 are less specific to the movie itself than they are characteristic of the hypermalaise that's infected so many current mega-blockbusters.
Far too much of this movie - like Tony's new toys - is running on remote control.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Either IM3 is a Marvel movie in the guise of a Shane Black action-comedy or the other way around. Regardless, it's an awful lot of fun.
Black largely acquits himself well, keeping the pace brisk, deploying a couple of modest surprises and staging a few undeniably impressive, super-sized setpieces.
Downey is at his superhero genius best here, rattling off dialogue both clever and boilerplate with non-repetitive aplomb.
It's undeniably entertaining - and worth seeing for Kingsley alone - with the misfires never fully overshadowing the moments of glory.
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| Original Score: 3/5
