By Sidney Reynolds

Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 is incredibly refreshing and thrilling. This time Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is back with his same arrogant, brilliant, and humorous self with a slightly more humanized effect that makes it easier to connect with the audience.

Throughout the movie it shows Stark having anxiety attacks from his time in New York working with The Avengers. During this time it also shows that there are a string of terrorist attacks committed by the main villain, the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley).  In response to his actions, Stark publicly insults and threatens the Mandarin. This results in his house is bombed while he and his girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), are inside. Stark goes to find him but results in getting captured by Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce). This leads to a full out battle between Stark and the Mandarin.

It was very nice to see this movie pick up after The Avengers instead of just ignoring it as if it never happened. Drew Pearce and Black also did an outstanding job writing the script making each scene exciting, intriguing, and hilarious to kept the audience’s attention. They also did a good job with character development. Stark seems a little more human and less like the perfect man due to his post-traumatic stress disorder. Robert Downey Jr. did an excellent job as he has done in the past two movies. He managed to get every emotion, thought, and word to touch the audience.

In the movie, Potts really transforms from just a love interest in the first movie into a bit of a hero all her own even though she is not necessarily the main hero in this movie. In this movie she really shows more of her independence which is different than most superhero movies that typically just have a damsel in distress. She is an inspirational role model for young women showing that she does not need to wait around for Stark to save her and that she can be her own hero. Paltrow does an amazing job portraying Potts and makes it very easy to see the chemistry between her and Stark.

This movie was definitely worth seeing again and again. It is an all around exceptional movie.