A Pillar of Iron

(With apologies to Taylor Caldwell for the title.  We read that book in Latin class in high school.)

My best friend asked if I wanted to go see Iron Man 3 on Friday afternoon.  I wasn't sure, as I was not expecting a lot more than a bunch of explosions from it, but agreed.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I want to say about it.  It was definitely better than I was worried about it being.  They came up with some clever ways to make life difficult for Mr Stark.  And the way the terrorism angle was put in made a lot of sense (and was well executed).  The twist related to Ben Kingsley's character was fantastic.

I also liked the ways they used the... remote control, for lack of a better term... suit of armor.

I also liked that the 3D was much better done than in Avengers.  Nothing really jumped out at me as not fitting in (there were much fewer totally-CGI pieces, which certainly helped.  The ones that were there were mostly only shown in low light, which doubtless also helped).

About the only thing I didn't like were all the explosions to which people were subjected, without injury, although I suppose that's becoming de rigeur for action movies these days, so I should probably ignore it.  Well, there's also the issue of heating the armor up to the point of it glowing in the visible spectrum without hurting the person inside or destroying the armor.  Not a big deal, but it does seem a bit unlikely.

I thought they also did a good job with Tony and Pepper's relationship.

My friend wasn't thrilled with what they did with Mandarin, but it didn't bug me (to be clear, though, I never read any comics where he appeared.  I knew what he looked like, but had no idea of his powers or tendencies).

So I definitely liked the movie overall.  A different friend asked me earlier today, though, how I liked it compared to the first two, and I wasn't sure of the answer to that.  Mostly, I think, because there was so much time between viewings (I've seen each one as it came out, and not since), but also because very little has really jumped out at me as being either really great or really bad.  Not sure what to make of that.

I still think Robert Downey Jr was an excellent casting choice, and the rest of the cast has been good as well.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what to say.  I enjoyed it, and wouldn't mind seeing it again (maybe with the first two, as better points of comparison).

Oh yeah, and I was greatly amused by the small tie-in with Downton Abbey.  I've recently watched the first three seasons of that, and greatly enjoyed it.  I still need to write up my thoughts on it, but I think that's a fabulous show.