Black largely acquits himself well, keeping the pace brisk, deploying a couple of modest surprises and staging a few undeniably impressive, super-sized setpieces.

It's undeniably entertaining - and worth seeing for Kingsley alone - with the misfires never fully overshadowing the moments of glory.
Critic Score: 3/5

Far too much of this movie - like Tony's new toys - is running on remote control.
Critic Score: 2.5/4

Black is good at giving his heroes a morbid, self-hating edge and even better at coming up with hateable villains.

Just like he does with those crummy Sherlock Holmes movies, Downey elevates this rather flimsy material with his sheer presence.
Critic Score: 2.5/4

Snappy dialogue, momentarily startling plot twists and lots of stuff blowing up.

The third iteration of a franchise that began so well becomes a hollow hymn to martial gadgetry. The suits and story clank in unison.

The action plays like a video game because, well, it may as well be.
Critic Score: 2.5/4

The movie is shrewd enough to skitter along so frenetically that nothing, not even tonal contradiction, can stick.
Critic Score: B

But for all the clanking armies of iron knights on display to dazzle the eager kid in each of us, this summer epic rings hollow. There's no one home inside the suit.
Critic Score: 2.5/4

This installment actually flirts with satire, sending its hero-in-a-can on a vengeful mission against a mad, bearded jihadist before yanking the rug out from under the neocon story line. There are some good laughs as well.

It balances massive, show-offy effects with hip knowingness and quirky human touches. It's a comic-book world seen not from the viewpoint of a fanboy but a wiseguy adult earthling.
Critic Score: 3.5/4

"Iron Man 3" is definitely a big perk-up from the almost-but-not-quite-listless "Iron Man 2"; maybe hanging out with the Avengers was a tonic for him.
Critic Score: 3/4

Unfortunately, [its] sharp-eyed domestic comedy is dwarfed by the far less well-written supervillain crime plot that surrounds it.

The new film's not great, but it's consistently involving because the tonal shifts are so abrupt.
Critic Score: 2.5/4

Downey is as funny as ever, if not more so. He ensures that Iron Man 3 is a solid installment in the franchise, and helps to make it seem, at least for a time, that it might be something more.
Critic Score: 3.5/5

The best scenes are when Stark just cuts impatiently through the claptrap.
Critic Score: 2.5/4

It's decent popcorn entertainment -- just fine for the summertime, but nothing more than that.
Critic Score: 2.5/4

Besides rehabbing a hero who overcomes anxiety to save the world and defeat the terror-industrial complex by the simple matter of cloning his body armor, the movie proves that there's still intelligent life on Planet Marvel.

The energy bleeds out of the film; it's as if the producers were scared the crowd would riot over not enough digital fakeness.
Critic Score: 3/5

If you're the sort of viewer for whom Black's strengths more than make up for his weaknesses, the best bits of Iron Man 3 will make the lesser stuff worth forgiving -- or at least worth enduring.

Shane Black excels at writing witty, self-referential, pop-infused banter, and there is no actor working today who is better suited to delivering it than Robert Downey Jr.

The action, directed by Shane Black, ranges from passable to interminable.
Critic Score: C