Iron Man 3 hits the spot with a bottom line that says “I’m better than the first two installments, watch me!”, and for good reason. The superhero franchise, which serves as a blockbuster sequel to both 2010’s Iron Man 2 and last year’s The Avengers, made a bold but direly needed move by revamping its gears and offering new goodies for the Iron Man fanatic to set his eyes on – all thanks to its writer-director Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang).
For the third time, we see Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man 1 & 2, Sherlock Holmes) put on his Tony Stark cover, the “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” engineer, who takes on the flight without a cape as Iron Man. This time though, he is confronted by Black’s Al-Qaeda version of the villain known as “The Mandarin” straight out from the Tales of Suspense #50 Iron Man comic book introduced in 1964.
The movie would present The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) in relation to Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a brilliant scientist from Stark’s past 13 years ago, who came up with Extremis, a project that aims to perfect a serum that can upgrade human DNA – which was taken from Warren Ellis’s story arc in the Iron Man comic book series called Extremis. This, however, becomes a plot to take out Tony and terrorize the United States by creating an army of serum-infused subjects whose eyes turn freakishly red and are armed with enhanced strength and rapid regeneration abilities (I don’t know, but Killian breathing fire makes no sense for me though). Tony Stark then teams up with his air force buddy JamesRhodes (Don Cheadle) and a kid from Tennessee named Harley (Ty Simpkins) to save the day as usual (it wouldn’t be a superhero movie if he didn’t).
With Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) being taken by the enemy, his Malibu sea-side mansion being blown to pieces, his anxiety disorder attacks, not to mention the lab rats of Killian hunting him down, and War Machine being named Iron Patriot, Tony Stark is given a new reason to suit up and be the superhero that is Iron Man.
This clearly steps outside of what rapidly became a stale storyline as started by the first and repeated by the second IM movie: Let everybody in the world see the sophisticated red and gold suit, and battle the villain wearing a bigger suit at the end of the day. With Shane Black, Iron Man was given a new aspect and direction (thank God). Together with the usual but better humor and robotically spectacular action scenes, finally, the story had Tony Stark put into drama which is something uncommon considering his spry, greasy and hilarious character. With the dramatic scenes being added, one can get a fresh glimpse at reality dragging Tony Stark down back to Earth. Even the subplot developing between Stark and Harley can give the audience that warm feeling amidst the tension from all the ruckus going on – until Stark ditches the kid, of course.
But here’s an interesting question: Considering that this is a sequel to last year’s The Avengers, why won’t Iron Man call upon his super-friends or S.H.I.E.L.D to help him? There were even moments in the film where “Avengers” was mentioned. Marvel studios president Kevin Feige answers this by saying that there are times when superheroes are on their own and that there are times when they are together. He also says that judging from Stark’s determination and nature after being attacked, he had to sort it on his own (Maybe a flashback of Stark telling Captain America that he “doesn’t play well with others” from The Avengers trailer might help).
Give me visual effects and machine explosions all day, they are stunning and spectacular as always, combined with not just one Iron Man suit, but dozens, even Pepper wears one! (Which I found sexy, by the way). Stark’s one-liners and the over-all script were way better than the second movie. Also, the story offered some twists which were quite unexpected, one of which was hysterical in all sense of the word unlikely involving Ben Kingsley’s character, making him steal the spotlight for a moment. In other words, it had a little bit of everything, including a sky-diving stunt with thirteen Air Force One personnel (who would’ve thought?), and that expected short clip at the end of the credits (Hello Dr. Bruce Banner!).
What better actor can play the role of Tony Stark the way Robert Downey Jr. does. His comic yet subtle antics at giving the character justice never failed all throughout the three IM flicks. And with a great supporting cast who all delivered great performances: Gwyneth Paltrow being hotter and sexier and does a good job at keeping Tony under control, Guy Pearce giving out a resounding bad guy role, and Ben Kingsley just both dark and hilarious in this movie, not to mention that Bin Laden get-up with that epic ponytail, Shane Black delivers an exciting superhero movie that lived up to the hype. Two thumbs up indeed!
– Edmond
