The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
There are many movies, people and things for which you may have low expectations and it is quite nice when they exceed your expectations. An example of this is The Attacks of 26/11. There are others for which you have high expectations and it is even nicer when they still exceed your expectations. Examples of this are The AvengersandJurassic Park (3D). There are others for which you have high expectations but which are greatly disappointing. An example of this is Iron Man 3.
I ought to state at the outset (and which I shall reiterate at the bottom) that this may be the fault not of anyone connected to the film but of the cinema hall itself. The audio seemed to be extremely poor; the actors seemed to be speaking in tones not much higher than whispers. Moreover, the scenes always seemed to be dark; no matter what the scene, it seemed to be at night-time or sunset.
The 3D, though, was a disappointment. I suppose that if you have a fetish about watching 3D films, then you can watch this in 3D, but it seemed to add nothing to the enjoyment of the film. Moreover, wearing dirty amateurish glasses was distracting. In fact, one of the glasses that Caroline and I were given had a missing eye-piece, forcing me to have the glasses quickly replaced before the start of the film.
At the intermission, Caroline said that she had wanted to see more of the Iron Man suits. I empathized with her, stating that it did seem to be a slow first half, but assured he that it was simply building up to a proper confrontation between Iron Man and The Mandarin. Unfortunately, the action scenes after the intermission were not quite what we were expecting and hoping for. The important scenes seemed to consist of Iron Man robots, rather than Tony Stark inside the suit. The film did seem to be very slow and lengthy. I was surprised to see the Wikipedia article stating that it was just a little bit over two hours long; it seemed to be much longer.
I shall not belabour the qualities of all the actors. For a long time, I have thought that Robert Downey Jr's/Tony Stark's Iron Man was the most fun and entertaining of any of the superheroes. Before watching The Avengers, I thought that he would be the obvious star, although I was still happy to see that all of the actors had their places, and that it seemed to be a true ensemble film. However, in Iron Man 3, he seems to be very brooding, and subject to panic attacks. I did not understand the purpose of the panic attacks; perhaps it was to make him seem less arrogant and more human, or it will be referred to in a sequel of The Avengers. (I have read that there will be no more sequels of Iron Man.) By the way, didn't Robert Downey, Jr. die of lung cancer about 12 years ago? (Oh, wait; that was Morton Downey, Jr.)
How can I find fault in Gandhi? Unfortunately, there were two things terribly wrong (and one thing that was just peculiar) with Ben Kingsley. The first was that he was in very heavy makeup. It reminded me of Naseeruddin Shah's role in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in which he was virtually unrecognizable. The second was that he was not The Mandarin--the most villainous of villains--but simply a dupe. Thus, his role was that of a comic foil, not at all what we were led to believe. Finally, in one of his few speaking roles as The Mandarin, he spoke in an American accent. Of course, the role was that of an American, but the dialogue seemed to be incongruous with Ben Kingsley.
There are some people who make appearances in their own movies. One such person is M. Night Shyamalan; another is Quentin Tarentino; and another is Stan Lee. I was looking for him, but could not find him. I later read that he was in the beauty pageant scene. I remember the scene as being very brief; perhaps that is why I missed seeing him.
What was greatly refreshing, though, was the acting of Ty Simpkins as Harley Keener. There are probably as many children in India as there are people in the United States; however, virtually none of them could be considered to be good onscreen. In Hollywood, I still think that Haley Joel Osment was robbed of an Academy Award. Ty's appearance in the film is too brief to qualify, but it was still an excellent performance.
As always (or almost always), I found some scenes to be also refreshing. Shortly after the attack on Grauman's Chinese Theatre (now, apparently, TCL Chinese Theatre), it was revealed that the Mandarin also attacked San Rafael, California, not far from my old hometown of Novato!
Pepper Potts died. Oh wait, she did not. However, when I thought that she did, I realized that this seems to be a recurring theme. In Skyfall, it seemed as if almost everyone died, and in The Avengers, I was saddened to see the death of the character Agent Phil Coulson. In Iron Man 3, Pepper survives the 15(?)-metre fall into an inferno apparently because of the Extremis treatment that she was given.
More significant and meaningful was Iron Man's saving the people who fell from the hole blown in Air Force One. Indians seem to be very emotive, and there was noticeable clapping and cheering for this scene.
As with his heroics, I enjoyed Tony Stark's gifting many things to Harley Keener at the end of the film; it was nice to bring back the character.
When the end-credits began, Caroline and I got up to leave, partly because we were slightly disappointed in the film, partly because I had to return the 3D glasses, and partly because we know that--especially in single-screen cinema halls in India--the projectionist stops the film at this point. Through Wikipedia, however, I learned that there was a scene after the credits ended. If you do watch the film then you probably should stick around to watch this scene; you may as well get your money's worth.
As I have observed in a few other films, there seemed to be one instance of un-reality in Iron Man 3. In the opening scene, which took place in 1999, Tony Stark is using an advanced computer. Of course, he is a billionaire genius who has access to, and creates the latest technology, but the scene was still out-of-place at a time when desktops and large monitors were predominant.
Again, it was difficult to hear what was being said (and again, this was probably the fault of the cinema hall, either in the projection or the acoustics--although we have watched a few films there in which the volume was adequate). Thus, I can not provide my favourite dialogues from the film and can say that it detracted from my understanding and enjoyment of the film.
Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps there was nothing wrong with either anyone connected to the film or the cinema hall itself. I seem to be suffering from the onset of pneumonia, so I am not always completely lucid. However, Caroline was disappointed in the film, and she is healthy.