Back in 2008 Marvel introduced us to ‘Phase 1’ of it’s Avengers initiative with the birth of Iron man. Since then we have had 5 more Marvel movies and been immersed in a world of superheros that has become one of the most successful movie franchises of all time. So, where do we go from here?!! Well Obviously ‘Phase 2’ which again starts with everybody’s favourite billionaire playboy philanthropist  Tony Stark.

Its always hard when a movie has 3 in the title. What is there to say that you missed in the first 2 films. (Classic examples of the 3 let down are Superman 3, Back to the future 3, The Godfather 3, Police Academy 3, we could go on but you get the picture.) In this case our boy is recovering from almost being sucked through a worm hole while saving the planet from alien attack. And as we all know this kind of experience can play havoc with your mind and lead to panic attacks and general psychiatric unbalance. There!!! We have a back story and if we throw a lunatic bent on taking over the world in to the mix we should be good to go. The thing is somewhere along the way things lose themselves. The first half is text book superhero, we start building a story from pre IM(2008) and catch up with the always effervescent Stark in the workshop working on the latest suit. The second half pushes the boundaries, which is what you want, but in this case sometimes it works and others it doesn’t. Its hard to explain without spoiling the plot but there are some lovely scenes with The Mandarin(Ben Kingsley) and some questionable scenes with Aldrich Killian(Guy Pearce) and Pepper(Gwyneth Paltrow). Ultimately the believability that grounded the previous excursions has been lost a little. Thats not down to Robert Downey Jr, who is as on point as ever, but more surrounding characters and tech. You probably came out of the first film thinking it would be awesome to have a Iron Man suit, this time you’ll come out thinking the same, difference is, you’ll know nobody could ever make one, let alone 42.

Having said all that Marvel aren’t taking themselves too seriously and the abundance of comedy moments lets you know you shouldn’t either. IM3 is an entertaining movie and the effects are what you’d expect from a blockbuster of this scale, but something tells me the fan boys will be a little disappointed. All eyes will be watching to see if ‘Phase 2’ will ever reach the heights of ‘Phase 1’

[rating:4.0]