I thought it was pretty good, better than IM1-IM2, but not as epic as Avengers and that was something I knew would happen since Avengers was just big.
The Mandarin bit was weird as **** and flopped for me since I've been waiting for The Mandarin for a long time in an Iron Man movie but they did pull off a nice twist with everything. Plus Guy Peirce in the final fight was much cooler than the Mandarin would have been imo. The Fire breathing bit had to have been a nod to Fing Fang Foom.
This is easily The Dark Knight Rises in terms of structure. So many similarities.
Another good point of the film was Tony actually having to do **** without the suit, solidifying the fact that he is more than just the suit (which is what Cap said to him in Avengers).
Best parts were when Pepper got the suit briefly, when Tony saved the people from the airplane, and of course the final battle with the Iron Legion.
Only gripe I have was that Iron Patriot was not part of the actual final battle, hopefully we'll see that in Avengers 2.
Just some questions:
1. Why now out of nowhere was Tony able to have the shard of metal removed from his chest at the end of the film?, why not just do that earlier.
2. What was the post credit scenes?.
Overall, the film is right up there with the other 2 Iron Man movies but...when you come off the Avengers you feel a bit...meh. PLUS it being Marvel's version of TDKR in terms of movie structure doesn't help either. Think of it like watching PRLR after "Countdown to Destruction". But still a solid film, very enjoyable, very fun.
I'll definatley check out the IMAX 3D for this one.