baronphoenix-924-133416

This is (and will be) the darkest of the Iron Man films. If it gets any darker, they will probably lose their audience. But, this was necessary. Stark comes thru the Battle of New York with PTSD; the Mandarin goes big on a terrorist campaign and the Tony-Pepper relationship hits a rough spot. The perennial teenager has trouble dealing like an adult. Downey really shows his chops as an actor, probably drawing on his own troubled past as source material -- he's got a lot and he needs it for this role. Paltrow really steps up for this one. We have seen her as the tough business woman, now we see her as the survivor. The writing isn't great. The effects are overdone. It might have been better if it was just 5 minutes shorter. Still, you really can't miss it, it's part of the saga and you will enjoy seeing Downey at his acting best

This is obviously a very low-budget independent film, but it's orders of magnitude better than most movies of its type. The story is pretty cliché, but solidly told; the actors are good (not great, but good) and the SFX are respectable for the era and budget. Pentan (the lead character) is an artificial human who wants to be free. Her escape from the rat race is far more difficult that yours or mine, but her motivation is stronger. Most of us are wage slaves, she is a real slave, and I was rooting for her from the start. I didn't like the fact that the antagonists are pure blackguards – they never waver nor question their own motives – they are driven by profit and refuse to give an inch. I can't say there are any surprises in this video, except that it's better than you might expect, and I'd like to see what it would look like with a decent budget and top grade actors.