8. The Mandarin Twist - Iron Man 3
One shocker I was less enthused about, however, was the reveal half-way through Iron Man 3 that The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) was not really The Mandarin at all, but rather an actor employed by the
real Mandarin, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) to insulate himself and basically create a figurehead for his mission. The problem was that we'd been misled by trailers to expect Ben Kingsley as an imposing bad guy who strips Stark of everything, when it ultimately turns out that he's wasted on comic relief, fleeting between toilet humour and an admittedly pretty hilarious reference to Croydon. The Mandarin is a beloved comic book villain, so it's something of a slap in the face to comic book fans - or, really, anyone who likes a trailer to accurately represent the film they're watching - to take such a character and completely butcher him with such clear intent. If you're going to use the trailers to misdirect audiences, you'd better make sure we're getting something better in return, which here we ostensibly did not.