Iron Man 3 is a movie I actually like despite their being a multitude of reasons why I shouldn’t
I feel the exact same way. I
do think that it's stupid they didn't use the real Mandarin as the villain. I also think it's a bit of a sad missed opportunity that we never got to see RDJ's Tony go up against his main archenemy from the comics. There are a decent amount of dumb things in the movie that I don't particularly like (I.E. Tony inviting terrorists to his house and not having
any countermeasures ready, having Tony destroy his suits at the end only for him to have a rebuilt arsenal in the form of the Iron Legion in AoU anyways, etc).
But at the same time, I kinda like the story they were able to craft with it. It's still a pretty competent and decent movie, even if Killian himself was kinda weak. As RumblyTumbly said,
It was a VERY interesting idea that served as commentary for how easy the public can be influenced by sensationalist media. The whole world, including our hero Tony, was led to believe in this tyranical terrorist and making him the target, and the whole time they were being misdirected by the villain who had other intentions. Its a pretty clever idea.
The issue to me mainly lies in the fact that it took away the opportunity to see Tony face off against Mandarin. They should've used another villain to do this bait-and-switch with, and not Tony's literal arch-nemesis.
My overall opinion is this:
-Iron Man 3 should've had the real Mandarin show up to cap off the trilogy, as it would've been way better payoff for Iron Man 1's 'Chekhov's Gun' setup of the Ten Rings organization. Ever since they fumbled Mandarin, they were pretty much forgotten for 8 years, and they meandered around as easter eggs in the background of
Ant-Man.
-The story about Killian and media manipulation should have been the plot a different movie (I.E.
Iron Man 4 or some other stand-alone thing), and it also should've used a different villain to bait-and-switch. It has potential, but its' use in Iron Man 3 makes the trilogy feel less cohesive and fulfilling. The movie takes something that had been built up since Iron Man 1, the Ten Rings, and instead of seeing the payoff to that with Tony going up against his literal arch-nemesis, it completely shits all over it and goes another direction - it steps on the toes of what could've been another engaging story in order to tell its' own.