Real Parents Review: Ironman 3

Iron Man 3 is the 3rd in the series of movies which highlights Marvel comic book hero Tony Stark/Iron Man.  The story picks up after Iron Man has finished defeating Loki (Thor's brother) along with the other members of The Avengers in the movie of the same name.  This battle has affected Tony in a significant way and his anxiety is shown in very real ways throughout the movie.  The movie introduces a new villain from  the comic book series - Mandarin played by Ben Kingsley, who is depicted as an evil terrorist and is bent on taking down the President and destroying the US of A.  Tony decides to take on this bad guy by challenging him and giving him his home address much to the chagrin of Pepper Potts, Tony's companion.  The Mandarin accepts the challenge and off we go.

The movie also borrows elements from Warren Ellis's Extremis story arch, and to do so, director Shane Black, begins the movie by taking us back to 1999 where we find the drunken playboy Stark pursuing a young, female scientist who's on the verge of a breakthrough in the field of medical regeneration. In his abrupt manner, Tony dismisses another aspiring scientist thereby setting the wheels in motion for the weaponization of the Extremis program that Mandarin uses to great affect.  

The movie has violence aplenty, as all of the movies in this genre do, but, it is generally of the slapstick/comic book type.  There is absolutely no sex and very few offensive words to offend your children.  The villains in this movie are not very scary and I don't think there is anything that would be overly scary for most children.  There are some great comedic moments throughout the movie and Robert Downey Jr does his typical good job of bringing the snark to Tony Stark.  My recommendation on this one is that this movie is appropriate for children 10 and over with the possibility that your younger child who have seen other comic book movies would also be able to enjoy this one as well. There have been other reviews of this movie, and they were disappointed in the storyline or the lack of other Avengers or how they portray the Mandarin, but in general, if you can just enjoy this movie by itself without comparing it to the other films in the Marvel group, you will have a great time.  We have seen Ironman 3 twice in the first week and plan to see it one more time!!