With Phase One and The Avengers now in the can, it was time to send the heroes off into their own separate adventures. The first of which was Iron Man 3. With this character kicking off Phase Two, he would lead the way for the other heroes in a post-Avengers Marvel Cinematic Universe. The aftermath of that film would be felt in all the other films heading forward, and even bleeding into TV shows Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil.
Which is what makes Iron Man 3 the most idiosyncratic feature in Phase Two.
In 1999, a more careless, compassionless Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) meets Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who wants to make a business proposal with him. Tony ignores him and inadvertently creates one of his own demons. In the present day (And set during Christmastime for no other reason than Shane Black tends to always use that backdrop in his films), Tony is suffering from PTSD after almost dying in the battle of New York. Elsewhere, a terrorist known as The Mandarin (Sir Ben Kingsley) has taken responsibility for many devastating acts of violence and destruction. When it becomes personal, Tony sets his sights on finding the Mandarin and exacting revenge. But things take a turn for the worse when Tony is cut off from his allies and technology. Now he has to use his intelligence and wit to survive and stop The Mandarin.
In an interview leading up to the film’s release, producer Kevin Fiege revealed the intent of Iron Man 3 was to isolate Tony Stark and send him back to basics, much like in the first film where he was captured and had nothing but his mind and a box of scraps to save himself. That approach mostly works here. It’s very entertaining to see Tony try to get himself out of a bad situation on his own with limited resources. If you didn’t already know it before, Tony’s greatest superpower is his mind. The suits of armor he builds are just extensions of that power. However, by sending Tony back to where we first meet him, the film also sends the MCU back to square one along with him.
Aside from the occasional referencing of an Avenger and the climax of The Avengers being the driving force behind Tony’s anxiety attacks, this film has almost nothing to do with the larger MCU. Other than the now infamous Mandarin twist, this was most likely the reason why the film proved to be so divisive amongst audiences. With The Avengers now united and the world aware of their existence, people probably expected future films to have a larger presence of SHIELD and other heroes. Depending on how you view the MCU, a film that is every definition of the term “standalone” is either going to turn you off or get you intrigued. James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy may have some of Gunn’s style, but the signs that it’s a Marvel Studios film are obvious.
Iron Man 3, on the other hand, is definitely a Shane Black film. It has his comedic style, his snappy dialogue and his sensibilities as a director like the aforementioned Christmas backdrop. It disregards the larger world it is set in, and even goes as far as to disregard comic history with the Mandarin twist, which left a bad taste in a lot of fans mouths. Some would argue that a character like the Mandarin could not work in today’s world due to him being something of a racial caricature in the past. But I disagree with that. Yes, the character was racially insensitive decades back, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been possible to rework him in a modern context, which the film does initially by portraying him as a terrorist who perverts Western iconography. Finally, if you wanted to make the Mandarin into a joke character, then so be it. It’s a creative decision and it’s up for our judgement as paying views. But did you have to waste such a talented actor like Sir Ben Kingsley in a role like this?
Other than its jumbled narrative where characters drop in and out of the story and the fact that the remaining MCU is ignored, Iron Man 3 is an enjoyable, yet distinct experience. Robert Downey Jr. is so definitive in the role of Tony Stark that it is hard to imagine another actor replacing him. There are plenty of clever and funny subversions of action movie tropes. The action set pieces are very well constructed and never feel bloated or tiresome, even if the faceless drones being killed in the third act are wounded veterans. As for the film’s ending where Tony destroys his entire hall of armors and gets the shrapnel in his hear removed along with his chest arc, it’s early to say how Age of Ultron addresses this. On its own, the ending feels like the Iron Man trilogy had come full circle and served as a possible sendoff for Downey in case he didn’t renew his contract with Marvel (Which he did, thankfully).
Looking back on it now, maybe this film was the reason why Marvel and Edgar Wright parted ways over Ant-Man. Perhaps the polarizing reaction to such an idiosyncratic film was what caused a creative wedge between Marvel, who call a lot of the shots on their films including final cut, and Wright, who is an auteur filmmaker with a very distinct style. Whatever it may be, the proceeding films in Phase Two were tasked with making sure the fallout of The Avengers and the rest of the MCU were addressed. The next film would do a better job with that than Iron Man 3, but the overall experience was less than stellar.
Final Rating: 7 out of 10.
Tomorrow- Thor: The Dark World