Iron Man 3

Most of the trailers for Iron Man 3 include the clip where a distraught Tony Stark muses about how “Nothing’s been the same since New York.”  He couldn’t have been more right.  Not only were those events hugely impactful for Stark, but The Avengers also catapulted Marvel movies to insane heights.  The bar has been raised yet again.

While it would be foolish for Marvel to expect a repeat in terms of box office numbers, expectations are still very high.  Luckily, when Avengers director Joss Whedon was given the opportunity to pre-screen Iron Man 3 his response was “What am I supposed to do now?  What am I going to do in Avengers 2?”

While we’ll have to wait a while to find out what ends up happening in The Avengers 2, Iron Man 3 is out and it is fantastic.  The film brings the attention back to Stark and his personal life.  While the Mandarin doesn’t plan on taking over the planet and enslaving the human race, his threat is still epic in proportions.  The Mandarin’s terrorist tactics serve to make the danger feel more real and plausible.

The focus on Stark’s personal life provides ample opportunity for Robert Downey Jr. to shine and shine he does.  Downey Jr. continues to be the the soul of Iron Man and frankly of the whole Avengers cast.  The day he is replaced is the day Marvel movies begin to decline.

He does a fantastic job convincing the world that even after The Avengers, each of these superheroes can still exist and thrive on their own.  While the original Iron Man film was amazing, Iron Man 2 proved to be a bit of a let-down.  It wasn’t a bad movie, but between the low-quality villain and all the Avengers distractions there was little room to focus on Tony Stark.  Well, redemption has come and Iron Man 3 proves that Iron Man is here to stay.