The first two “Iron Man” movies did not receive our Dove “Family-Approved” Seal, in both cases because of language and in the second film in the series, due to the content in the sex, language and violence areas. It is exactly the same this time. The sex, language and violence categories hit a rating of three or above which prevents it from being considered “family friendly” by Dove. I personally enjoyed Iron Man much more in “The Avengers” movie which was, by the way, Dove approved.
I found the plot to be a bit difficult to follow in parts. There is much going on–too much in actuality. It didn’t seem to settle down into a rhythm or continue to build toward a climax. Instead there were lots of explosions, fighting and angst throughout the movie with brief interludes of calm. Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) becomes more of a heroine in this one which is a nice twist and the villain, the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), was an interesting bad guy but unfortunately he is not in the movie enough. In fact, we get a bit of a surprise by movie’s end regarding the villain. Despite a lot of action the content and out-of-control plot devices featuring constant action and destruction work against this movie. No Dove Seal from us on this one.