can anyone make a case for what the theme of the movie was besides "Iron Man fights some bad guys?" I mean, I saw that they seemed to be tugging at the strings of "anxiety" and manufactured fears (especially with the bookend voice-over at the start and finish of the film) but was that really played out in the film?

I mean, aside from the Mandarin being an actor, there was NOTHING manufactured about the threat of Extremis (they blew up Tony Stark's house for chrissakes!). the theme that ended up getting short shrift was the idea about genetic engineering and the outer limits of scientific ethics, and I might be too kind by saying it got "short shrift" since really it wasn't there at all. I think I'm still just trying to cling on to what I liked about the Extremis comic books.

but seriously, action scenes came at a stupidly predictable rate, the whole story could be boiled down to "Iron Man had to fight a bad guy," and in the end the only real thing we learned about Extremis is that somehow it made people stronger and their punches were able to damage Iron Man armor because of it.

anyway -- not worth even typing that much about. paint-by-numbers super hero movie.