Iron Man 3 blasts onto the screen to the sounds of cheesy pop hit Blue (Da Ba Dee). You know this is gonna be fun. Shane Black, whose last work with Robert Downey Jr. Brought us the brilliant Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, takes over directing duty from Jon Favreau. Thankfully he brings his humour, creativity and talent for subverting genre clichés to Iron Man 3. This is the first of Marvel’s ‘Phase Two’ movies, in the wake of the wildly successful team-up movie, The Avengers. Next on the cards is Thor 2 this year and Captain America 2 next year, building towards The Avengers 2 which should be released by 2015. The challenge of making and Iron Man movie in a post Avengers world are met with enthusiasm by Black, opting for an admirably scaled down and more personal story. What we get is the simultaneously darkest and funniest Iron Man outing and easily the best of his solo movies.
This time around, Tony is plagued by insomnia, bad dreams
and anxiety attacks after his experience with ‘Gods, aliens and other
dimensions’ in the Avengers and has been obsessively building new suits. The
most prominent of these is the Mark 42, which can attach itself him piece-by-piece
and can be remote controlled by thought. New threats arrive in the shape of terrorist leader
The Mandarin, an army of genetically modified super soldiers and the man who
created them, Aldrich Killian.
Robert Downey Jr. has always been excellent as Tony Stark movies
and Iron Man 3 does more with the character than any other movie has so far.
Gone is his brash bravado as we see him vulnerable and afraid for the first
time. We finally get to see him tested and pushed and to see a quieter, more
likable side to him (his arrogance while his defining characteristic could get
grating at times). For a large part of the film, he has to manage without his
armour or high tech gadgets and the stakes are more personal and far tenser. That’s
not to say this movie resorts to naval gazing, as there’s plenty of fun and humour,
delivered mainly through one liners and Tony’s back and forth exchanges with
Rhodes. The scenes with the two of them together will delight any fans of the
buddy cop humour of the Lethal Weapon movies (which Black wrote). There is also
a bucketful of creative actions scenes which more than deliver the required
adrenaline expected in a film like this. The most impressive of these is the ‘Barrel
of Monkeys’ sequence involving Iron Man saving people falling from a plane,
done impressively by a stunt skydiving team rather than CGI. Gwyneth Paltrow has
far more to do as Pepper Potts in this film as does Don Cheadle as Rhodes and
both are solid in their roles. Ben Kingsley is the stand out of the cast, with
a fantastic performance as the super villain, The Mandarin. The movie makes a smart
decision on how to handle the character and his chameleonic acting goes hand in
hand with his mischievous character development.
Like our hero, the movie has its flaws. The biggest of these
is the pacing, as the films sometimes lingers on scenes that are unimportant
and frustratingly speeds through scenes which are vital to the story. This
leads to the movie sagging in parts, particularly the second act which also
includes an annoying child character. It also leads to some characters feeling underdeveloped
and motivations left unclear. This is
particularly the case with Guy Pearce’s character, Aldrich Killian, and Maya
Hansen played by Rebecca Hall, both of whom are incredibly important to the
story. The super powered henchmen get no character development at all. The
third act is quite rushed, evidenced in the late inclusion of the Vice
President, who again is important to the story but barely talked about.
Overall though, the flaws aren’t enough to detract from the
great fun that’s to be had here. While people who weren’t fans of the previous
Iron Man movies are unlikely to be swayed, there’s plenty of humour, action and
drama to keep fans entertained and it will surely go down as the best Iron Man
movie. If this is the last solo outing for the ol’ shellhead, then it’s a
fitting ending.
If you like this try: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), Lethal Weapon (1987)
