Tony Stark is world-renowned superhero Iron Man, not to mention an obscenely wealthy technological genius who has recently worked things out with the love of his life. He should be on top of the world. And he probably would be, if he wasn't suffering from crippling anxiety attacks and an inability to sleep as a result of nearly getting trapped on the other side of the galaxy (in Avengers).
These problems mean that Tony isn't exactly operating at peak capacity when he finds himself tangling with the international terrorist who calls himself "The Mandarin", despite being a Caucasian who appears to be riffing more on Middle Eastern motifs than those of China. I'm not sure whether white-washing this role is better or worse than the wince-inducing "yellow peril" stylings of the original comic book villain. Probably it would have been better just not to pick a character with quite such a loaded background?
In any case, there's more to the Mandarin than meets the eye, and Tony will need every trick in his admittedly very large arsenal of tricks in order to survive when he finds himself in extremis.
Omitting the problematic Mandarin angle, Iron Man 3 is a fine superhero film of the Marvel kind, with a charismatic lead (Robert Downey Jr knocking it out of the park once again), and plenty of spectacle to tide us over between the generally well-executed character beats. I would have liked more to have been done with the supporting cast, perhaps, but RDJ is so good that it's hard to quibble too much with the film focusing so much on him.
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