10 years on, Iron Man 3 remains Marvel’s most overlooked movie

gamesradar.com:

Everyone has a favorite MCU movie. Avengers: Infinity War, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier are all generally regarded as the best MCU has to offer. The flip side is also true. If you read forums and social media for long enough, plenty will passionately tell you about how a batch of Marvel movies – Eternals, Thor: The Dark World, and Quantumania all spring to mind – are undeniable flops.

Then there’s Iron Man 3. Not quite a success (though the $1.2 billion box office would beg to differ) and not quite a failure, the Shane Black-directed threequel feels like the poster child for Marvel’s forgotten middle-of-the-road mediocrity. Upon a revisit for its 10th anniversary, it’s clear that it’s overflowing with style, charm, and charisma – something that Marvel’s post-Endgame era has been struggling to find.

You don’t have to look far to see why. "I’m the best," Tony Stark says in typically understated fashion while pirouetting into his new Mk. 42 armor early on in Iron Man 3. Robert Downey Jr. could just as easily have been talking about himself. He has never been better as the billionaire playboy than he is here, carrying the entire trilogy in spite of glaring story flaws and seeing it home in a way no other current Marvel character or actor – perhaps aside from Chris Hemsworth’s Thor – could do. The standout scene where he threatens the Mandarin by giving away his home address stands up there with one of MCU’s most badass moments and – whisper it – is a touch cooler than his "I am Iron Man" mic drop.

But he’s not all about one-liners. Downey also low-key delivers one of his best Marvel performances as a new type of Tony Stark: a manic, sleep-deprived inventor desperately clawing for new ideas