Spoiler Free Review: Iron Man 3!

Luke here! I'm actually posting this for Jacinta who is not near her computer. My own spoilery thoughts on the film tomorrow! Here's Jacinta's take on the exclusive premiere....

I was lucky enough to receive a ticket to the Perth premiere of Iron Man 3 on Monday night, and what a premiere it was. We were greeted with a red carpet, an Iron Man cosplayer (who you may have also seen in our Oz Comic Con coverage), a caricature artist doing sketches of people as Iron Man, and a stack of goodies for the nerds who were lined up and positively chomping at the bit to get their eyes on Tony Stark's new adventure.

Now, seeing as Iron Man isn't coming out in other regions for a little while, I'm going to do our stateside friends a solid by doing a SPOILER FREE review. The only stuff I'll mention will be stuff that has been featured in the trailers, so if you're curious as to the vibe of the movie, but don't want the story ruined, read on safely.

Join me below the cut for a bit more on the premiere, and all those Starky questions I know you want answered.

Our ticket for the screening was nothing short of a Stark Industries access card and lanyard, which was totally badass and something I'll treasure for a long time. Upon getting to our seats we were met with a random Iron Man comic (I ended up with a issue of Matt Fraction's 'The Invincible Iron Man' series. Score!), some sort of fruity red and gold drink that I suspected contained mango but I didn't drink much of, a little mini Twix and mini bag of Malteasers to mimic the colours of the MK42, and a Stark Industries cupcake.

Awesome. I didn't eat mine, it's sitting in my fridge at home. One day I might eat it. One day...

Keep in mind that this was the PERTH premiere, and Perth is extremely different to Melbourne or Sydney. Having a cosplayer and some cupcakes is actually pretty damn good for us. Movies don't normally get premieres here where actual effort is put in, so a big thumbs up to Event Cinemas and the distributor for showing us they love us. Though if you could get us Hemsworth for the Thor 2 premiere that'd be pretty okay too.

As for the movie itself...okay, let's just address some burning questions.

Was it better than Iron Man 2? Yes. Not hard though, right?

Was it better than Iron Man 1? Up for debate. They're quite different, but if I was pushed I'd say on par.

Does Pepper really wear the suit? It's not a dream sequence is it? Pepper definitely wears the suit.

Do we get a really good look at all of those new suits? Some more so than others. There's a lot, so showing them all would take a movie in itself!

Do we see any of the other Avengers? If I told you I'd have to kill you.

There's an after-credits scene, right? It's great, right? Don't be an idiot and leave while the credits are rolling. You should know that by now. It's worth it.

So, after all that, what I can tell you is...I can't tell you anything. The trailer does a great job of completely foxing us, and while you might go in expecting one movie, you come out having watched something completely different. It's the funniest Iron Man movie yet, and also the darkest. Tony comes out the other side of the events of The Avengers suffering some degree of PTSD (though he denies it in the movie), and becomes even more of a paranoid workaholic, working manically on new technology to keep himself and Pepper safe. Gone is happy-go-lucky Tony, and in his place is a man teetering on a knife's edge. This is a big movie for Tony, and while I obviously won't say what happens, he and his life are forever changed by what occurs.

Our main villain, Ben Kingsley's Mandarin, is utterly fantastic but again, sadly I can't say much. I mean, c'mon, you're going to see the movie anyway right? You just wanted to know if it sucked or not. It doesn't suck. At all. It's Iron Man done on an Avengers-size scale and some of the sequences are nothing short of spectacular. I did hear a tiny bit of nerd-griping as I left the cinema, but I suspect they were just being a bit anal about some of the stuff that was tweaked, because for myself as a casual Iron Man fan, the changes that I saw only made things better and added to the story. It did start off a bit slow which worried me a bit, but once the sequence where the Malibu house is destroyed occurs (no spoiler, it’s in the trailer!), things really start cracking along.

Strap yourselves in, cause Tony Stark wants to take you on a ride, and it's a ride well worth going on. Join us again on Thursday for a big spoiler FILLED review after the FP team check it out together.