This is the first film in a long time where my jaw’s dropped at the opening studio logos. The surprise is worth it.

I really enjoyed this! It’s rare that a film like this continually surprises you, but the story has a lot of tricks up its sleeve, and the writing just sparks with energy.

They also got a brilliant handle on how anxiety attacks work. Tony Stark’s a bit messed up post-flying-a-missile-through-a-wormhole, and it shows. There’s one particularly scary sequence that left me reeling.

It’s hard to talk about this film without spoiling it, because although it doesn’t rely on its twists and turns, there’s a lot of satisfaction in coming to them fresh.

Pepper Potts is given a lot more room to do her thing in this film, and actually becomes a bit of a badass by the end. Which is nice. I was starting to get the impression that if you’re a woman in a superhero film you either need to wear a skintight black costume or be completely one-dimensional. Or in the X-Men franchise, I guess, but even that’s tenuous.

How much of Tony Stark is Robert Downey Jr., and vice versa? He’s an electrifying presence in films, but that also translates to his interview persona (post-meltdown, anyway). He plays this effortlessly, either way.

This does have echoes of the mood of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (the last collaboration between writer-director Shane Black and Downey) - there are a lot of quieter, subdued moments, and while the quips mostly stay above board, there are moments where it all gets a bit darkly comic.

All in all, very well handled, and the rare example of the third film in a trilogy easily being the best.