Iron Man 3 - One for the Junk Pile

Arguably the worst of the MCU films, Iron Man 3 (although I find it more watchable than, Spider Man Far From Home) left a lot to be desired, and as we got the "twist" in the film, it wasn't a thrill, it was a direct shot to the unarmored iron balls.

When it was announced that Ben Kingsley had been cast and it appeared that he was playing the Mandarin, I was thrilled, this is one of the greatest actors of the last century.  Then I saw the movie and felt like chucking my large Sprite at the screen.

For the longest time, the Mandarin has been one of Stark's greatest enemies, now it seemed that they were dialing it up to 11 by making him a terrorist leader as well as everything else he's supposed to be, but just another angry CEO... didn't we do that with Obie and Hammer?  This was the opportunity of a real hardcore Ironman villain, and Marvel failed big time.

The one good thing I'll say about the film is that it was still a lot of the nuts & bolts Ironman and not that nanotech nonsense they would later use to screw up the character more.

It started off great, the video threats from the supposed Mandarin, matching up with a lot of the way terrorists like to operate, it was a change for him, but it was okay, kinda matched up with reality a bit more, I could live with that.  Using human bombs that could go off and walk away, VERY COOL, could leave those investigating it fooled for who knows how long, no evidence.  

Stark meets this really cool kid in Tennessee, a kid with some of the same talents as Stark, nice appeal to younger audiences but not to over-cutsie as Disney products tend to overdue it, it was working so far.

This could have let up to an even better Shang-Chi if the real 10 Rings had been in play, like the Mandarin used in the comic.  At Mandarins defeat the rings could have gone to Shang-Chi's father, and we could have seen that unfold in their film.

But the moment we learned that the Kingsley character not only wasn't the Mandarin but just an actor, the film died, right then, it was over and not worth another kernal of popcorn, and it was such a bad choice it took credibility from the entire MCU.  If they were willing to make a decision this bad on an Iron Man movie, what else might they severely screw up?!?

I'm not a fan of Guy Pearce anyway, I'm not impressed with his acting and can't understand how anyone is, he comes off as slimey from the first second, even when he's not trying to.

Let's hope that Shane Black just goes away and doesn't return to the MCU anytime ... at all, the writing was terrible and the direction was abysmal.  Let him go make B-level action flicks with Z-list actors where he belongs.

In the end, this was just a really bad addition to the MCU and probably shouldn't have been done if they weren't going to do it right.

Overall this film gets half a star, but for a single film, it gets none, it was just a mistake, plain and simple.

This film will forever be in the ranks of Indiana Jones 4 and the Star Wars sequels of, WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING!?!