IRON MAN 3

[Black Jack Rackham]

So wifey and I went to see it tonight. Much better than I expected, and without giving anything away, I agree with most of the reviews I've read which essentially boils down to, "Not as good as 1 but WAY better than 2."

OK NOW SPOILERS

High Points
1. Fight at the end made the whole thing worth it
2. Kid was cool
3. Mandarin was WAY better than I expected and I officially take back my grumbling about Ben Kingsley being totally wrong for the part. In point of fact, I will eat some crow and now say for the record, he was absolutely perfect in the role.
4. Jarvis was excellent this time around
5. The jokes are back and I sorely missed them.

Low Points
1. Operation: Clean Slate made no sense whatsoever.
2. Getting rid of the Extremis operatives seemed a bit too easy
3. I still don't like the Pepper Potts/Tony Stark love affair
4. Jon Favreau should never, NEVER have that haircut again...
5. Still didn't explain why the hell Rhodey didn't join up for that fight in NYC.

[salamanca]

Rhodey doesn't work with the Avengers because the military won't loan him to Shield. No idea why nobody figured that out.

[Black Jack Rackham]

I get that they don't want to loan him out. So that explains why he wasn't in the majority of the movie when they were just hunting Loki down, but...

SHIELD: Um, hey US military, we know you don't like to share...
US Military: Yup, you're right. You're not gonna ask for Warmachine again are you?
SHIELD: Well, yea, kind of, you see...
USM: We told you before, he's our plaything not yours.
SHIELD: Well, it's just that there's this alien race...
USM: la la la We can't hear you, la la la la la
SHIELD: Listen, and there's also this weird wormhole like thingie...
USM: Call the Fantastic Four, they're the ones who handle that kind of thing.
SHIELD: They're not in the reboot, did you even see how much that movie sucked?
USM: HA! Point, US!
SHIELD: (Ignoring the taunt), BECIDES, Given who Captain America is, It'd only be the Fantastic Three
USM: Johnny Storm isn't the brightest bulb, who cares if he's there...
SHIELD: They're in NYC for god's sake.
USM: Well what about Daredevil or Spiderman? Hey isn't the Shadow and that other guy the purple one? Aren't they in NYC? Call them.
SHIELD: *SIGH* BEN AFFLECK?!? and Spiderman's not in our continuity yet. AND really, how can you not know the Shadow and the Phantom aren't even Marvel Comics?!?!
USM: How about Frank Castle (snickering in the background). Wait a sec, never mind we want him, you can have the rest...
SHIELD: So back to Warmachine?
USM: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO (Stamps feet)
SHIELD: Listen, you need to hear this...
USM: (Continuing their tantrum) NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO...(Pause to catch breath)
SHIELD: (Taking advantage of the silence) We need Warmachine because those aliens we mentioned?
USM: Yes?
SHIELD: Well, they're killing folks, AMERICAN FOLKS...
USM: Nope sorry, he's doing stuff
SHIELD: What could be more important than saving lives?
USM: Well it's one of the Joint Chief's birthday and we didn't want to spend the money on a skywriter so...
SHIELD: That's IT! We're calling the president.

[salamanca]

Probably went more along the lines of: "can we borrow warmachine?". Military looks around..." sure on the condition he is in charge". Shield freaks out. "we have Captain America and Col. Nick Fury!". MILITARY POINTS TO "Col. Rhodes". Or Coulson asks Tony to call Rhodey and Tony points out that the armor is a good 7 weeks old and vastly obsolete making him useless. Or they are angling for a crossover fight and he was assigned to "guard" Jane Foster to get Thor to sign on.