that said, there was one thing that disappointed me, and it’s the same exact problem I had with The Dark Knight Rises last year: the ending felt rushed.

there was no real climax, no epic finish, nothing - and the worst part of it is that they did the same thing to Khan that TDKR did to Bane, having spent the whole movie building the character up only to give him a really disappointing, anticlimactic finish.

seriously.

he gets punched in the face and then we fast forward several months and that’s it. we do see him in stasis briefly, but.. seriously? that’s the way the big epic villain is handled? by getting punched in the face?

oh well. I suppose it’s better than having him turn out to be an actor decoy and revealing that the real Khan was the tribble Dr. McCoy had been testing on about halfway through the film.

still, despite these gripes, it was a great film. I’m not sure whether I’d rank it above the previous Star Trek film, but I’d definitely say it’s equal at least.

(as a side note, I can’t talk about the movie without mentioning the inclusion of the famous “KHAAAAAAN!” and the different spin they put on it. that was well-handled and very satisfying to see.)

I have very, very mixed feelings on it.
 
as a good entertaining film, it worked pretty well. I had fun while watching it. RDJ was perfect as always, there were a lot of great moments and it definitely had its pluses. I liked it more than Iron Man 2 overall.
 
but at the same time, the way they handled The Mandarin was massively disappointing. I felt ripped off. speaking as somebody who has been enamored by the Iron Man comics for 10 years, I would have preferred it had they not included the character at all.
 
if it had been darn near any other Iron Man villain, I would've been fine with it - but this is the fan-favorite, iconic Iron Man villain. The Mandarin is to Iron Man what the Joker is to Batman and Lex Luthor is to Superman. imagine what The Dark Knight would have been like had they done the same thing.
 
we were promised The Mandarin, we got a brilliant actor cast for the role, and from all of the early information and pictures it looked like we were going to get an amazing rendition of the character.
 
even despite the changes they had to make, it seemed like the core of the character was there.
 
but instead, we got something of a slap in the face and a wasted opportunity (not to mention a waste of Ben Kingsley's talent). Marvel and Shane Black can assert all they want that Aldrich Killian is the Marvel Cinematic Universe's answer to The Mandarin, but with how completely different (and thoroughly uninteresting) Killian's character was compared to the legendary arch-nemesis that fans of the source material know and love, I personally believe that we still have yet to actually see The Mandarin in film - and, due to the events of Iron Man 3, we won't within the foreseeable future.
 
and that is disappointing.