Iron Man 3

After the dull and crappy Iron Man 2 and the fun-if-a-bit-overrated The Avengers, I was pleasantly shocked by how thoroughly enjoyable I found this. It scores on the big screen action count, but also has lots of laugh lines and nice character work and (perhaps alone among films so far in the Avengers series) actually says something pretty interesting about the use of symbols and theatricality in warfare and terrorism.

Wow, that was one fireproof sports bra.

Where the first movie was rather by-the-numbers and the second one had major issues regarding momentum and reasons to care, this third outing pleasantly surprised me with its much better balance between character stuff, story, comedy and action. What amused me was that knowing the comic pretty well actually makes one of the surprise reveals more surprising. Downey is much less manic and quirky, which was welcome. Kingsley owns, Pierce is decent, and the Cheadle bromance was delicious.

Yet another crisp buddy cop-masterclass from Shane Black - neatly disguised as a superhero sequel. He can't hide not caring the least for the Iron Man character or most of the genre characteristics, but Black nonetheless easily delivers the most charming installment of the series. Oh, and "I'm not that kind of a doctor".

What it lacks in scope compared with Avengers, it sure makes up for with Shane Black added into the mix. Unapologetically entertaining from start to finish, and playing refreshingly loose with the tropes of the genre, this instalment finally gave Downey Jr. the movie he deserved.