When Aristotle argued in favor of creative unity a mere couple of millennia ago, he was actually on to something. But what did he know? He was stuck with blockbusters from Euripides and Sophocles and never got to see Gone with the Wind.
While I'm on the subject of plot holes (see what I did there?) Wouldn't the vaunted Stark tech have provided better warning of impending attack than the sad variation on "uh, guys, are these red dots moving toward these green dots important?" Wouldn't Jarvis have a counter-measure or two installed given all the hardware Stark Enterprises had thrown at it in The Avengers? Nah. Who needs counter-measures when you have The Suit?
Anyway, in spite of the unevenness of the storyline and the cliché of massive exploding metallic structures serving as a flying trapeze for heros and villains, the movie has enough moments to push it over the "B" and into the B+ to A- range. The villain arc manages to be creative and droll at the same time. It's played fairly well by the curious duo of Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley with mildly surprising and sometimes comic twists and the expedient of a superfluous female character played by Brit actress Rebecca Hall, who doesn't get to use her British accent (bummer). But there is something unsatisfying about the villains, as if their relegation in the film to less-than-critical status early on sort of lets the air out a bit. The stakes seem to have been deliberately reduced. Too bad Hans Gruber, Roy Batty and Mr. Smith were busy being dead. And too bad much of the supporting cast like Favreau's Happy and Cheadle's Rhodes seem more like props and convenient plot devices than actual characters.
But the truly surprising golden heart of the movie involves the scenes between Stark and a random tech-savvy Tennessee kid (played by not-so-Tennesseean veteran Ty Simpkins). The improbable interplay actually works because the actors make it work. Forget that southeast Tennesseeans are unhappy about the depiction of their wifi access. And forget that snow doesn't generally stay on the ground in SE Tennessee. And forget that the Miss Chattanooga pageant is in May. This is a movie, people. Who cares about details? What they do get right is the chemistry between Stark and the kid.
After that, settle in for lots of playful screen-time with Stark out of his suit, some nice throw-away humor where the audience gets to spew some popcorn, and a finale worthy of a New York City Christmas fireworks display. That leads to my last gripe--the Christmas plot positioning was just kind of...lame. The film-maker meant well, but the effort was wasted. Be that as it may, Iron Man 3 is still a lot of fun. And the after-the-credits bonus is nice, too.
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