5. They're Lucky They Got A Third Movie
Guys, it's time for some tough love. While Iron Man 2 was fun in and of its own right, it certainly wasn't the direction that Iron Man deserved to be going in. The film overloaded itself on action set pieces and comedic gags, and scaled back on actual storytelling. However, if anyone remembers their Iron Man 1 well enough, they realize that the complete opposite was the problem with that film. The story was well developed, but the action wasn't as grandly scaled as it could have been, especially with the finale being what it was. So far on the scorecard, that's a two modest hits but no home run. Iron Man 2 was slammed for being too much of a set up to The Avengers, not to mention a lot of people just thought of it to be a big, dumb spectacle when compared to other superhero films. (Especially those of the Darker, Knight-ier variety.) Luckily, The Avengers gave Iron Man 3 the opportunity to be the run that sends Tony home and knocks it out of the park. Events have put Tony Stark in a rather interesting position, and all signs point to this film outdoing the damage that 2, and to a certain extent 1, did to what the franchise could have been. It looks lethal, it looks fierce, and it looks like it'll maintain the usual Stark wit while kicking all sorts of ass. It's just that after this much ass is going to be kicked, it's usually time to take a bow and say goodnight.