10 Underrated Recent Movies That Deserve A Second Chance

10. Iron Man 3

I know about 50% of you are turning your nose up at this, but, really, is it distaste for Iron Man 3, or a grumble that The Mandarin wasn't as advertised. Get past Trevor Slattery and what you're left with is an as-good-as-it-could be Shane Black action comedy blockbuster, with a balance of laughs and thrills and extraneously fun Christmas setting.

Although, should The Mandarin be a sticking point anyway? It's a twist, not false advertising (this is no Jared Leto's Joker), and one that fits the tone of the movie perfectly. The racist caricature with magic rings (things that don't fit neither our own world's decency nor the semi-grounded science of the MCU), was updated to the modern villain; not a Bin Laden leader, but a petty tech CEO. That's a neat change, and in a movie hot on the heels of the oh-so epic Avengers, a send-up of that was a neat palette-cleanser.

It's not like the Mandarin is even the biggest character shift in the Iron Man mythology. That'd be Tony Stark, who was redefined massively for the big screen to be more like, well, Robert Downey Jr. People didn't mind then because Iron Man was a B-List hero few had affinity with, but something in the intervening five years meant everybody expected super faithfulness over a fun flick.