Was Iron Man 3 really that bad?

I see an awful lot of criticism of Iron Man 3 on the vine and it has its faults, but I feel it also has a lot to commend it. I mean its hardly Batman or Robin and it is still the highest grossing CBM involving a single hero, so it hardly failed. I guess the Mandarin really upset the traditionalists and I understand that, but was it that bad really? I mean I watch it over Iron Man 2, which I found quite boring.

box office =/= quality

I don't give a crap about being Faithful to mandarin or not. What pissed me off was they spent so much time making Kingsley a good villain, then destroyed it for the sake of a stupid joke. And its not like the "twist" wasn't expected either. We all knew Pearce was going to be a bad guy.

Plus, and although this is far more minor for me personally. Iron Patriot is stupid and War Machine is badass. The fact that Tony was making fun of it the whole time even irked me more because I felt like they were trying to joke at themselves only failed miserably.

It wasn't good; that's for sure.

No, it isn't. People have been placing it on Catwoman level of bad.

Beata

Even ignoring the Mandarin change (which I was already prepared for and tried to not let it ruin the experience) it's the one Marvel studios film I did not like at all. Not as bad as Man of Steel or Amazing Spider-Man 2, but around that level of disappointment.

The whole film was badly constructed and poorly executed with elements being borderline patronising to the audience. Marvel know they have messed up by the 'All hail the King' one shot that is the first steps of a delicate turn around to get things to where everyone thought/ hoped they would be.

I don't think anything can be that bad, lmao

Based on the trailers, people (like me) went into the theaters expecting something other than what we ended up with getting.

For starters, the trailers made it look like the Ten Rings and a real Madarin was going to appear in it and Tony would be fighting terrorists. Thats great, especially in our time where terrorists are the scum of the earth and doing something serious with the Mandarin would have been a prize for those of us who thought the Ten Rings were largely wasted in the first movie. And for the first half of he movie, it looked like that would be what we'd get... and then the Twist came. (Can anyone say they really gave two shits about Killitch and his past with Tony before it?)

Secondly it just seemed like we were back with pre-IM Tony from the first movie, a slightly intolerable and insensitive douchebag that has to find his way again. A story seen a few months prior in Dark Knight Rises that just did it better.

Third... a flipping kid-sidekick that proves why Bale didn't want a Robin, because he was annoying.

Lastly, in all honesty, much like Depp/Sparrow, I think people grew bored with Downy Jr.'s antics on screen, it's fun the first time, but its worn thin by the 3rd movie and not helped by the rather stiff recurring cast, which saved the part in Avengers (new people to bounce it off).

I liked it alot, more than Iron Man 2. The plot twist did not bother me, I actually prefer movies that distinguish themselves from the books. The tie to terrorism and current events gave a chilling tie into real life. The Mach 42 was so crappy, it did annoy me and the Iron Patriot being captured so easily was weak. That kept it from being a top notch film for me. I love Happy asking everyone for the badge, lol

Of course not! It's a wonderful film and at a 9.5/10 - the only reason I'm not rating it a 10/10 is because of the Mandarin twist...

- TAS

I didn't enjoy it

It was adequate, I suppose.

Yes, yes it really is that bad.

Yeah it was just awful... That's coming from the biggest Iron Man fanboy you'll ever meet.

This movie felt like some underhanded attempt to mock the character by someone who could care less about working on an Iron Man movie outside of being paid. We see the destruction of the Tony/Iron Man character who goes from a badass to a pussy who has panic attacks and has his girlfriend stop the main threat of the film, from a mad genius to an incompetent goof that builds a defective suit that fails at almost every damn turn (He is not Justin Hammer!). He is out of character running around with the silly super-spy shtick, it's like the director wanted to cram his own movie in the middle of two parts of the Iron Man movie he grudgingly worked on, all together making a sh*t sandwich. Ben Kingsley was wasted beyond belief, Killian is yet again just another failed-rival character for Tony, like most Marvel films it's poorly written and filled with enough plot holes/inconsistencies/nonsense to make Micheal Bay blush. It has some hints of goodness, but still, a very lame movie that leaves you shaking your head ta the end. It's hard to compare this and Iron Man 2 because this doesn't even feel like an Iron Man movie, so I can't say which one was better, but i can say this one was the bigger disappointment and less entertaining to boot.

It was like watching a Fox superhero movie. It was that bad.

These videos do justice.

Not really. I think people where just disappointing with the handling of the Mandarin.

I thought it was tony stark rather than iron man

It was bad.

I liked it, but it definitely had some problems.
I actually liked the whole panic attack thing, too.