10 Best Film Sequels By Different Directors
7. Iron Man 3 (2013)
The Sequel To: Iron Man 2 (Favreau, 2010)
The Director: Shane Black
Taking Over From: John Favreau
The high-point of the Marvel Universe so far, Black's Iron Man 3 is a deft, dazzling superhero film, one which dabbles in the elements of tragicomedy fitting of the absurd nature of superhero stories themselves.
Robert Downey Jr. is on top form in his third solo outing as Tony Stark, delivering his best performance yet as the billionaire-playboy-superhero-philanthropist-genius. There's an undercurrent of sadness in 3, and the sequence in which Stark spends time with a young Iron Man fan in a nondescript town is a splendid deviation from the CGI-centric world of the comic book hero.
Black, long one of the best action writers in Hollywood, delivers fully in only his second directorial effort, moving away from the flagrant silliness of Iron Man 2 to present something altogether more realised. That's not to say that he skimps on the action, and Iron Man 3 indeed contains some of the requisite spectacular CGI set-pieces required by the genre. It's just that Black tempers them, setting the superhero benchmark in the process.