After the alien attack in New York, events in Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey, Jr.) have died down. However, he has developed extreme insomnia and bouts of anxiety at the mere thought of New York. In the lull he keeps himself busy with building new and improved Iron Man suits.

But when a terrorist, who calls himself the Mandarin, threatens and deploys several bombs throughout the US, Tony Stark becomes determined to stop him at all costs. After Tony Stark threatens the Mandarin, a fleet of the Mandarin’s lackeys come after him, destroying his home in Miami, leaving Tony with one Iron Man suit, a prototype that is not fully equipped for combat. With the help of a young boy, he must recharge is Iron Man suit and find out where the Mandarin is hiding so he can stop his plot to kill the President and defend the ones he loves. Even if it means giving up Iron Man.

Since I haven’t watched Iron Man II, I was afraid Iron Man III would be hard to understand. The good thing is that it wasn’t. With Iron Man III, besides some new characters introduced in the second movie, as long as you saw The Avengers you were pretty good since there was a lot of reference back to it. Everything else was easy to figure out. It’s a new story, which was well written, where Tony Stark must be Iron Man and save the day. However, the twist to it is that he has new ailments and obstacles that strip him of his Iron Man suit making him look for help in people he wouldn’t normally talk to. The script was also very witty and had me laughing out loud more than once.

I think my favorite part of the movie was the fact that Tony Stark was suffering from anxiety attacks (most likely Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). While it might sound mean to say that I enjoyed that part, what I mean is I think it makes Tony Stark more relatable to the average person, and makes the character of Iron Man more interesting to me since I just see him as a rich guy who buys his super powers. But by the end of the third movie Tony Stark is stripped of all he is and puts others before himself.

Grade: A