Marvel, at some point, had to make a really bad blockbuster superhero movie. I'm just truly sorry Iron Man 3 had to be it, as Iron Man 1 & 2 are two of my favorite movies of all time. And Marvel went all out in their efforts to make this one really, really, bad.

As the legendary Dr. (Seuss) himself put it so succinctly: Stink, stank, stunk.

If you were never a fan of the Iron Man comic books (especially the early ones; I owned the first editions of almost every single Marvel comic in 1968, when I was 14) --and you are okay with people breathing fire and running around with a body temperature of 1000 degrees in what is supposed to be a superhero movie series dominated by "realistic" technology-- then you may not have the same set of issues I did with the film.

I had some concerns from reading the various discussions of the plot -- starting as far back as a year or so ago-- regarding the rumor that the film was built around the "Extremis" story line from the more recent Iron Man comics, which I personally felt was unsuitable material as the base for an Iron Man movie that would fit well with the first two.

But more recently my fears had subsided because a very different take on the movie's plot was being offered by many people who were supposed to be in the know about the film (a take that turned out to be totally false, but alleged that the film would be a more down-to-earth spies, assassins, and technology type affair). It turns out my fears were warranted, and from my perspective the plot was a total disaster.

I knew the moment that the "illusion" (as I will politely refer to it for now to avoid spoiling the "fun" for those that haven't seen the film) regarding the primary villain was revealed one thing was was bound to happen: The Iron Man comics fans would savage this movie because of the way The Mandarin was depicted. For long-time fans of the Iron Man comics the manner in which The Mandarin was handled and portrayed would almost certainly be perceived as heresy, or sacrilege. And, based on the reviews preceding this one, my intuition was spot-on accurate.

I have no doubt that I myself emitted an audible gasp when that moment arrived, and I was also overwhelmed with nausea, because it basically -- in an instant-- consigned Iron Man 3 to the scrap heap of superhero movies.

And then, it got worse...

In general things just happened in the film, with little or no explanation provided for the events, processes, or results. And the movie's conclusion consisted of about a minute and a half of a poorly executed scramble intended to wrap-up all of the loose ends left behind during the course of the film. In not much more than a small fraction of the movie's running time a half-dozen or so intractable issues were magically resolved and numerous life-altering decisions were made --even though none really had to be.

In the end, the movie fell flat because the writers, directors, and producers tried to do way to much with it and in the process completely lost control of the story line. They, as a group, simply allowed the film to suffer from what we in the product engineering field call "feature creep": the tendency for project managers to try to cram in a bunch of enhancements and features at the last minute, which detracts from the reliability of the more important 95% of the product that is already complete and just needs to be polished up and tested properly.

It was also apparent that the producers of this disaster had way to much film "in the can" and way too little time to fit enough of it in, leaving a seriously jumbled mess as the result.

My advice, in a nutshell? Go see it and make up your own mind. But be forewarned.

Me, I'll be trying to wash the bad taste of this unsavory film out of my mouth for quite a while.