With Captain America Civil War only a few weeks away, it seemed like an appropriate time for a Rewind Review about an unstable PTSD suffering billionaire who loves running around in a metal war suit who gets duped by a drug-addicted British actor and Guy Pearce because he left him on a roof top that one time.
The kick off of Marvel’s Phase 2 projects and the immediate follow-up to one of the biggest record-breaking films of all-time that ultimately lead to every other studio trying to jump on the shared-universe bandwagon in the hopes of making Scrooge McDuck levels of money. Iron Man 3 certainly had some huge expectations resting on its’ heavy metal shoulders and with huge box office takings and critical approval, you could call it a success, but with some huge plot holes and a divided reception amongst fans, Iron Man 3 is a bit of a divisive mixed bag.
I personally really loved this film. Shane Black gave it some really punchy humour, impressive action sequences and some great misdirections that lead to some genuine rug-pulling moments. Sure some people may say that the film is too much Tony and not enough Iron Man, but when both Tony Stark and Iron Man are Robert Downey Jnr I fail to see how this is a legitimate complaint. Downey gives his most layered performance of Tony Stark to date with the most funny and most vulnerable version of the character we’ve ever seen. Downey spits out Shane Black’s script that brings us right back to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and also reminds us of why Black is one of the most sought-after action movie writers of the last few decades.
With better humour than Joss Whedon’s Avenger’s film, I almost would go as far as saying this is a more enjoyable movie than the 2012 super-blockbuster, sure there’s some more plot holes and non-sensical moments that The Avengers didn’t have, but I just feel that the humour works so much better here. The film also benefits from some great action set pieces such as the Air Force One plane rescue sequence, which looks fantastic, but serves no purpose to the film other than just looking cool. Plus the slight of hand approach where we discover the Iron Man suit was being remotely operated gives this film the edge over some of the bigger criticisms of the film. Speaking of slight of hand, after seeing the film for the first time that you must admire how well Marvel handled the marketing and the secrecy of the big Mandarin reveal. Sure some fans despise the handling of one of Iron Man’s greatest villains, but the fact that many people didn’t see it coming makes for one of the film’s better twists. And come on, Ben Kingsley kills it on both sides of his role: he can be absolutely terrifying as The Mandarin but hilarious as Trevor Slattery.
Now as I’ve said, I don’t personally have an issue with the Mandarin reveal, admittedly I would have loved one final twist where we discovered he was playing possum as his Trevor persona and actually was The Mandarin all along, but I digress. The plot holes have been covered in countless other web series such as Honest Trailers, How It Should Have Ended, Cinema Sins, etc; so you should know most of them: putting on his only untested suit, not activating the House Party Protocol as soon as he gave out his personal address after threatening a terrorist, the weird grab-bag of powers the Extremist villains seem to have, blah, blah, blah. I agree that these things are all questionable issues with the story, but I don’t think that diminishes the enjoyment of the film. Some of the issues I have are probably a little more simpler: the “death” of Pepper Potts felt like a non-issue because you knew they weren’t going to kill her off, and with this hot on the heels of Agent Coulson being resurrected after his death in The Avengers, this just became a recurring theme in the Marvel films. Sure they have killed Quicksilver since Iron Man 3, but that honestly felt like a cop-out killing a character that has only just been introduced in the same film. Fingers crossed with Civil War on the horizon we shall have a meaningful death within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Overall, despite the completely unnecessary Christmas setting and the Lethal Weapon 2 climax, Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 is thoroughly entertaining blockbuster film that has more unexpected twists and surprises than your regular blockbuster fare. If this is Robert Downey Jnr’s final solo effort as the Invincible Iron Man, then for my money, he’s gone out far better than most third entries in comic book movies.
Iron Man 3 gets Four out of Five “Diplomatic Immunity” references that were clearly missing from this film’s climax.
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