Iron Man 3 (Black, 2013)

     When the trailer for Iron Man 3 came out (posted above), I and many others were expecting the film to be a darker, grittier version than the previous two.  I thought this was a curious step to take, considering the amount of humor and lightheartedness the films have established thus far.  The trailer featured Tony Stark waxing philosophical while everything he loves is burned to the ground, set to heart-wrenching, epic music.  It almost likened Tony to the Bruce Wayne presented in The Dark Knight franchise.  The film presented in that trailer, however, is very much different from the one shown in theaters.  While there is a certain level of melodrama, the film is actually even more comedic than the first two and uses that humor to create a highly entertaining blockbuster reminiscent of the joyous action flicks of the '80s and '90s, namely Die Hard.  It is perhaps no coincidence that, like Die Hard, the film also takes place around Christmas and satirizes many of those self-serious action tropes.