dark, no less—for one of those lumbering climaxes involving swinging shipping cranes? The energy bleeds out of the film; it's as if the producers were scared the crowd would riot over not enough digital fakeness." Reacting more negatively, Stephen Whitty of The Star-Ledger found the film "slickly enjoyable" for the visual effects, but said, "[T]here's something empty about the film. Like Tony's suits, it's shiny and polished. But this time, there's nobody inside ... This movie has neither the emotionalism of the first film, nor the flashy villains of the second ... Tony's relationship with girlfriend Pepper Potts is in inexplicable jeopardy—and then simply fixes itself. A supposedly cute kid sidekick—a true sign of authorial desperation—is introduced, and then dropped." Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune echoed this, saying, "[I]n a gleefully cynical bid for a preteen audience (a few years too young for the violence in Iron Man 3, I'd say), Stark befriends a bullied 8-year-old (Ty Simpkins) who becomes his tag-along and sometime savior ... Stark no longer needs to be in the Iron Man suit. He's able to operate the thing remotely when needed. The movie's like that too. It's decent superhero blockbustering, but rather remote and vaguely secondhand. At this point, even with Black's flashes of black humor, the machinery is more or less taking care of itself, offering roughly half of the genial wit and enjoyment of the first Iron Man." Accolades Themes and analysis Iron Man 3 focuses on contemporary U.S. foreign policy and its consequences. Like the first Iron Man film, it is about the military industrial complex. The main antagonist, Killian, tries to take over the US government and capitalize on the War on Terror with a decoy villain actor, the Mandarin; the supposed looming menace distracts the public from Killian's actions with a narrative of the constant threat that also makes the war profitable. Using Stark as a metaphor of American society, Charlie Jane Anders of Gizmodo notes that the film differs in the portrayal of the country from the previous two entries; whereas the previous films were about the guilt of ruining areas in foreign countries, Iron Man 3 is about the feeling of powerlessness, in that a trusted, wealthy and individualistic celebrity like Stark is unable to find a powerful terrorist such as the Mandarian. The Mandarin, a cover-up adversary that is otherwise non-threatening, is a take on Americans'