Iron Man 3

Adding a surprisingly human dimension to Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr.) Iron Man, through which relatable stresses such as panic attacks are relativistically normalized through recourse to the exceptional, Iron Man 3 finds him suffering from the aftershocks of his debut with the Avengers, aftershocks which force him to begrudgingly confront his mortality.

Kind of.

At first, he compensates by stretching his extroverted insignia to the limits by trash talking a terrorist who then uses his arsenal to obliterate the Stark residence, leaving him theoretically helpless after he barely escapes.

He is exceptional however and thanks to an avenue of inquiry established by his prior research, fortunately lands himself in a crucial situation wherein his gifts are practically vetted.

Screenplay writers Drew Pearce and Shane Black (who also directed) do a great job here of rationally justifying a seemingly highly improbable scenario.

Colonel James Rhodes's (Don Cheadle) dialogue with Stark is used to rationally justify another seemingly highly improbable scenario later on as well.

They also play with the device which sees franchises seeking to extend their limits by introducing youth (something remarkably different more generally) to nurture a newfound pluralization.

Yet shortly after doing this it becomes clear that the Iron Man films will not be (heavily) relying on such devices, as Tony harshly yet avuncularly explains.

Excellent confident synthesis of the particular (the Iron Man films) and the universal (movie trilogies generally).

Some of the minor characters shockingly receive a lot of depth as well as comedic components of Machete's narrative unreel.

The film makes it clear that experimenting on humans is unethical by attaching this component of its narrative to the villains, villains who were created by Stark's callous self-obsession.

In the end, Stark perfects their methods, however, thereby leaving the film in an ambiguous domain wherein which it's difficult to discern what it's clearly stating.

Clarity is important regarding such matters.

The protagonists use technology to differentiate themselves, the villains, experimental performance enhancing pseudodrugs.

These drugs themselves were developed using nefarious methods, and in my opinion, the film would have been stronger if Stark had destroyed everything having to do with them, even though he was indirectly responsible for their creation, in order to find an alternative cure for his condition.

I understand that this is highly improbable, but having an exceptionally gifted iconic individual not use said gifts to actively create an ethically acceptable alternative by overtly employing different tactics while directly acknowledging said differentiation doesn't make sense to me.

Not using research obtained through such means to pursue beneficial ends does make sense to me.

The ending would have been stronger had Iron Man acted accordingly.