Warning Spoilers
Iron Man 3 is in both an enviable and unenviable task as a movie. Being the first post Avengers Marvel movie, the movie will get eyes on it from fans brought in from that juggernaut of a movie. The downside is, it has a hell of a movie to be compared to. That’s an interesting position to be in. As a movie unto itself, Iron Man 3 is a good and entertaining summer popcorn movie. That doesn’t make it a good movie. As we’ve seem to come to expect from summer movies, the film is lots of action, and not much depth under that loud, full of explosions skin.
The movie’s plot is pretty simple, Tony Stark is now having some issues being Iron Man after the events of New York in the previous Avengers. At the same time, a terrorist, the Mandarin, is running around blowing stuff up and shooting crappy videos (the real life North Koreans have more entertaining propaganda videos). After an attack that hits too close to home, Tony gets pissed and goes after the Mandarin, because now it’s personal.
The fact Tony didn’t get involved earlier is the first thing that bothered me. There’s a line about how any involvement would be an issue since this has to deal with American policy, but I didn’t buy it. It just seemed odd.
But at that point, the action kicks up as the plot expands. The big baddie isn’t the Mandarin at all, it’s Aldrich Killian who is charge of A.I.M. and wants to do… something. Using Extremis to create super soldiers and human bombs. Why he’s really doing this, is never really explained. His end goal was?
That was just one of the many issues I had as far as the plot. Here’s some more:
- Aldrich wants to control the terror and the President to do what?
- Why did all of these soldiers suddenly turn into terrorists at the end? They were being used as bombs unwittingly.
- Why does Extermis make people get hot and breathe fire?
- Why would Rhodes have access to the A.I.M. servers and pretty much their whole plan?
- The kid had a whole Cousin Oliver vibe about him.
- Why didn’t they just kill the President on the plane?
- When did Tony Stark become James Bond and anything other than a smart guy in a tin can?
- Why wouldn’t the Avengers get called in to take on a terrorist like Mandarin?
- At the end Peppper suddenly can kick-ass and do all kinds of kung-fu?
I also had an issue at how Pepper’s role was clearly wedged in at certain points, it didn’t feel organic.
What I did enjoy was the twist that Mandarin wasn’t the main bad guy. It was an unexpected twist that I thought that was handled in a funny and entertaining way. It also explained the British accent. Humor though was a thing the movie seemed to have issues balancing. It’s an issue the second movie had as well, it went to far into the attempts at comedy. Here, when it worked, it was great, at other points, not so much.
The cast was mixed overall. Sir Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin plays the role quite well, especially with the switch he must do. Guy Pearce as Killian channels Val Kilmer in The Saint, it was too cartoony at times. Robert Downey Jr. is the draw. His performance is so engaging, so much fun to watch. That is almost enough of a reason to watch the film. Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts and Rebecca Hall as Maya Hansen are both ok in their roles.
There was a lot I did like. The action was crazy, especially a skydiving scene I’d love to see how they did. Those sequences, especially the crazy over the top ending, are what a summer popcorn movie is all about. Turn your brain off, and sit back and don’t think too much. For all of the explosions though, the rest of the movie wasn’t deep enough.
The movie was better than the second film, but didn’t quite reach the excellence of the first. It also doesn’t come close to touching the Avengers. I expect Iron Man 3 to do quite well (though not sure it’ll be the top grossing film now), but overall, there’s just too many flaws for me to completely enjoy it.
Direction: 6.75 Acting: 7.75 Plot: 6.5 Overall: 7
