Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 leans hard on Tony Stark's repair problems, and that makes it feel more personal than a lot of polished superhero sequels. By our assessment, its best move is to keep the action tied to improvisation, broken gear, and a hero who has to think through a crisis rather than just punch it. The cost is that the story can get crowded with gadgets, reversals, and franchise demands, so the emotional line sometimes has to squeeze through a busy plot. In practice it has the snap of a big studio action film, but with more self-mockery and more mechanical detail than most of its peers. It sits in the middle of Marvel sequel territory: slick, loud, and more interested in scrambling its hero than in reinventing the genre. That makes it a good pick for viewers who want an energetic superhero film with a little damage built in, not a solemn showdown. The title says it plainly, and the film keeps returning to the question of what happens when the suit is not enough.