When a man reaches the end of his life, he comes to regret certain things. |UproxxVideo|

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I don’t have much of an opinion on Iron Man 3, other than I liked it. I guess I fall right in the middle of the spectrum if one end is Vince’s praise of the wonderful Shane Black and the other is Nathan’s takedown of the “terrible” film. I could have done without that entire Adam Pally scene and I thought the end was a little quick and convenient, but do I feel that my $12 was well spent? Sure, why not.

The movie isn’t without its flaws, as very few movies of such scale are perfect, and one questionable moment came early on when Aldrich Killian visited Pepper Potts to try (once again) to get Stark Industries on board with the Extremis project. Pepper glossed over her relationship with Aldrich, claiming that he had harassed her many times about going on a date, but there was no elaboration.

Well, it turns out that the very first draft of Iron Man 3 featured quite a bit of elaboration. As Black explained on the Empire Film Podcast, Aldrich and Pepper… Got. It. On. And they recorded it because that’s what people do now.

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I try not to do a lot of prefacing before I get to the meat of my movie reviews, but for this one it seems necessary, so here goes: I saw a lot of Shane Black movies in the late eightes/early nineties. As an only child with no restrictions on what types of movies I was allowed to watch, the R-rated Lethal Weapon movies were to me what The Goonies and The Sandlot are to other kids (even as a 10-year-old, I had a knee-jerk disdain for anything I perceived as treating me like a child, I even hated the Ninja Turtles). I got in trouble at school more than once for parroting Mel Gibson’s creative methods of telling his captain go f*ck himself. Today I can still quote my favorite lines from even lesser Shane Black films, like The Last Boy Scout (“I think I f*cked a squirrel to death”) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (“Nah, I just sock ‘em in the jaw and yell ‘pop goes the weasel.’”). Hell, I even liked Last Action Hero. And this was years before I even knew Shane Black’s name, or that it was the same guy writing all those scripts. I always wondered if my affinity for Shane Black was just a right-time, right-place situation, with his scripts being popular and me being young and stupid at about the same time. But now that I’ve seen the Shane Black-directed and co-written Iron Man 3 well past the age when I should’ve acquired discerning taste and reason? Bros, I’m here to tell you that my youthful stupidity was downright prophetic.

Iron Man 3 blows the first two out of the water. The first had a certain beef-headed charm, and was notable for being the first to present Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, one of the all-time great casting choices. And of course, ROCKET HANDS. The second was an extended trailer for The Avengers, best forgotten, apart from Sam Rockwell smirking and Mickey Rourke’s parrot. Frankly, I wasn’t looking forward to a third. And then… All the weirdness surrounding Sir Ben Kingsley playing The Mandarin – an ethnically ambiguous sort-of Indian actor playing an ethnically ambiguous sort-of Chinese villain, who seemed to have been based on an earlier generation’s romanticized stereotypes about the Chinese and who in the movie speaks with consonant-heavy, Amerrrrican Innnnndian-esque a-rrrregional accent – all of it crystallizes in a character reveal that not only manages to make all of that make sense (!!!), but is easily the funniest scene in any superhero movie to date. And I’m counting the unintentional humor in Daredevil or the Fantastic Four movies. Was Iron Man 3 a silly movie? Oh my, heavens yes. But after that scene I would’ve followed it anywhere.

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Haha, quit playing around, you guys.

Laremy jumped off to a commanding lead in this year’s Fantasy Summer Box Office contest, as his first pick Iron Man 3 hand rocketed its way to a $175.3 million opening in North America, good for second all time behind The Avengers $207.4 million last summer. But we all saw this coming, let’s not start acting like Laremy is some kind of sage here. Iron Man 3 is to this summer’s box office what Barry Sanders was to Madden ’92, and any butt-fingering chimpanzee worth his own back ticks would’ve chosen it first. (Look, you do not want Laremy to get a big head, trust me on this).

Iron Man 3‘s $175.3 million debut is a huge leap over Iron Man 2‘s $128.1 million [and Iron Man's $98.6]. That’s a remarkable achievement given the dodgy history of three-quels—nearly all of them decline from their predecessor—and Iron Man 2′s questionable reputation. The main reason for this is simple: audiences viewed Iron Man 3 more as follow-up to The Avengers, which is almost universally beloved, than as a sequel to Iron Man 2. [BoxOfficeMojo]

I guess I can buy that the public saw it as a follow-up to The Avengers, since the average Joe Buttcrack and Charla Cheesesnack don’t think about stuff like Shane Black coming on to direct. Though for me, there’s a nice synergy to the idea that the best of the three Iron Man movies is also the highest opening. (*tattoos “SHANE BLACK 4 EVA” on chest with exacto knife*)

Weekend Top Ten and Fantasy standings below.

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Other than the revelation that the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are joining Marvel’s The Avengers 2: On The Move, we’ve been a little light in the super awesome comic book movie rumors and news in the past week or so. That’s why it was good that Entertainment Weekly asked the question – is this the end of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man?

RDJ has completed his contract as the billionaire playboy Tony Stark, and he’s not actually under contract to play Iron Man again in the Avengers sequel. Add to that the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow recently told Kevin McCarthy that she doesn’t believe there will be an Iron Man 4 – “I think we’re done with Iron Man” – and there’s not currently a fourth film on the extensive Marvel docket. So what does that mean for Avengers 2?

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