THE forthcoming blockbuster season – featuring Spider-Man, Superman et al – couldn’t have got off to a better start than with this corker.

Director – and super scribe - Shane Black, has joyfully re-teamed with Robert Downey Jr, who he guided to great effect in the brilliant Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, to give fans of action films all that they could possibly wish for, and then some.

The script and story, as we know, is everything, and Black has applied his legendary way with words to the masterpiece he has created with Brit Drew Pearce. Not only is Iron Man 3 exciting and full of dream action sequences, it is smart, smart, smart, and will provide you with as many belly laughs as thrills and spills. In that sense, it is a more than worthy successor to Jon Favreau’s Iron Man (let’s forget Iron Man 2). 

The first hoot comes early as Eiffel 65’s Blue (Da Ba Dee) plays after an ominous voiceover from Tony Stark warning that “we create our demons” before taking us back to Millennium eve and early encounters with scientist Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) and cripple Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce). The latter wants to share brain recoding ideas with everyone’s favourite billionaire playboy but is stood up and left on a rooftop.  

The machinations of much of the plot must remain a closely guarded secret to prevent anyone’s fun being ruined, but the world and his wife already know that Sir Ben Kingsley plays the Mandarin. This terrorist, who sneers “you’ll never see me coming” in dramatic grainy footage, warns America that they need to be “ready for another lesson”, ie an explosive attack.  

Alongside all of this is Tony’s continuing relationships with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), his butler Jarvis (voiced by Paul Bettany), and his friend War Machine James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), who is aiding the armed forces in his own suit, but has been renamed the Iron Patriot, much to Tony’s disdain.

His old friend and chauffeur Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) has a nice side plot, which amongst many other things, includes his passion for Downton Abbey!   

Rat a tat exchanges are littered throughout Iron Man 3’s running time, alongside, during and after thrilling action sequences at Tony’s Malibu home and elsewhere. These set pieces are all the more exciting because of the (Terminator-esque) possibilities afforded by the baddie’s key innovation, and there’s even a Lethal Weapon element to Black’s final showdown as Tony and Rhodey go into battle together.

In the lead, Downey Jr is utter perfection as ever, particularly when nicely souring the saccharine – the potential cheesiness of the child-centred side plot – and delivering the script’s sarcasm and wit. Just watch the constant intelligence of his facial reactions when he’s accused of being “off with [his] super friends” or when delivering a quip about a Stark superfan’s tattoo.

You might have your suspicions, but you won’t know exactly what’s coming in Iron Man 3, and, as such, you’ll be on the edge of your seat. That’s just where we film fans want to be.

NB. Fans should stay to the end of the credits for a fun scene featuring Tony and another member of the Avengers.