Raiders of the Lost Stark: A Review of Iron Man 3
By Corey N Kaler
Marvel Studios seems to have an affinity for film styles from the past, starting with last year’s Avengers and its mix of 60’s western and the original Star Wars movies. Marvel’s upcoming Captain America sequel is said to be inspired from the 70s, the upcoming Thor sequel will be inspired from like a millennium before your great grandfather’s great grandfather was born, and the current Iron Man 3 has a pristine script taken straight from 1982.For all the techno babble junkies that Iron man attracts as a character, this doesn’t necessarily mean it looks like it was made in 1982, just written in 1982. The focus here is fully on Iron Man, not just as a superhero, but as a mentality. Back in that Golden Age of action and scifi, the characters of the movies had to problem solve, to think their way out of a situation, because of course they’re going to find a way out.
The opening might jar some people, as the movie is technically starting before you even see the distributor logos, similar to what the last Harry Potter movie did. This sort of opening is what usually can be thought of as a “necessary evil” opening, something that Lincoln had last year and several beloved movies have had in the past. This strange opening is a combination of creativity and necessity, there to reintroduce the Iron Man movie world, along with making sure to change a couple aspects to the universe and show a new, more introverted version of Stark, in direct contrast to a flashback to his heyday as a massive playboy. While it comes off weird at first, the flashback recreates the mood of 1999 nicely while also bringing something from the first movie full circle, thus validating the trilogy as a whole.
Once we are shown how drastically Stark has changed, then all of the terroristy stuff is introduced, leading the way for a new threat that isn’t from the 80s at all, but something that could have come right out of the news anytime from 1998 to the present. The introduction to the Sir Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin will bring comparisons to Osama Bin Laden to mind with the creepy way Shellhead’s arch nemesis is introduced. After this introduction, the movie gracefully starts gathering steam in an old thriller movie fashion where one thing I won’t reveal leads to another thing I won’t reveal, and Stark finds himself able to protect Pepper, the person he loves most, but loses everything else and accidentally fakes his own death in the process.
This movie took all of the risks in scope that Los Vengadores took last year and applies those risks to the typical action movie genre with this film. Viewers will be shocked at just how little Iron Man is in his suit, something similar to what Nolan’s final Bale Batman film did last year. These anti glamorous approaches lend more time to the character, and challenge the lead actor’s ability to make audiences care about the human being inside the suit, and just like Bale did last year, Downey makes it look painfully simple. The movie’s reliance on Stark’s problem solving skills and throwing in some genuine emotion and very real stakes make this film match the first Iron Man, something that most will be grateful for, though the blasted music inconsistencies throughout the trilogy will be like fireworks to anyone who studies this stuff.
The musical inconsistency knock aside, Brian Tyler’s score for the movie is definitely a massive improvement over the second one’s lacking score, and it fits the more emotional take on the character. That being said, it’s about five years too late to wish the man had scored them all. Either way, all of the ingredients necessary for an emotional experience are there, and while Robert Downey Jr., (RDJ to all the nerds in the cellars) is definitely the main focus, and literally carries the movie as a whole, the supporting cast was great as well. Pepper Potts veteran Gwyneth Paltrow was decent in the part she had, and definitely less annoying than in the second one, while Don Cheadle as James Rhodes was decent as well, not to mention the bashing of the name Iron Patriot was a nice touch. Sir Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce, the Mandarin and AIM head Aldrich Killian respectively, are two massively talented favorites of this writer and both do an excellent job at keeping the villains interesting, something the first and second movie were flawed in. James Badge Dale as a super soldier and Ty Simpkins’ ten year old boy Harley was a gift from God in that he wasn’t a complete distraction and actually brought even more heart to the film as a whole.
The film is light on action; with three full out action sequences in the entire movie, and definitely has an aspect to Kingsley’s Mandarin that could go either way, depending on if you’re a comic fan from the previously mentioned cellars, or simply a casual viewer. I will say all of the cellar dwellers should just skip this one and save everyone from listening to the moaning and groaning that is sure to accompany the Mandarin character. The movie replaces spectacle with a constant surge of sly cleverness that even finds it’s way into the scenes that are the set pieces, with Stark’s priceless ingenuity and high IQ being the thing that will be massively taken away from the movie. The final sequence itself is easily the best climax in the trilogy purely for being such a step away from what the other two movies did.
Overall, there was great acting, great writing and thrillerish buildup, but yet again the axe of Marvel Studios commences with some obvious chopping. This movie’s single biggest issue is the obviousness with which things were cut out of the movie. While this isn’t some massive sin, since The Avengers was written and shot to be in the neighborhood of 45 minutes longer than it ended up being, co- writer director Shane Black’s relative newness to directing could be part of the reason. This being Black’s second movie after a series of script only engagements, one could see where filming would take a bit longer for a movie of such scale. The unfortunate consequence here is that whole quotes and shots (most noticeably with The Mandarin) that were actually in the most recent trailer for the film are glaringly absent from the final feature itself. While this is not unheard of or uncommon by any means (one could look no further than The Amazing Spiderman or The Incredible Hulk, both risky-ish reboots of well known movie franchises), it is still unfortunate that shots needing some explanation and quotes that could have been intriguingly built on were omitted from the product. There was also a character which had a relationship with Stark that was known through some common sense by the writer, but that was never really more than hinted at in the movie, making the intro at the beginning pointless since there was no visual payoff beyond implication. A last issue was that while it’s known that Mandarin’s group of happy shoe bombers were the ones who kidnapped Stark and indirectly created Iron Man in the first place, it’s annoying to see Stark never openly acknowledge this.
All gripes aside, it was a decent movie with a masterfully written pace and some great intelligence and heart, along with a great main character who proves that while his toys make him interesting, he only needs his brain to be entertaining. Overall the goal of making the single characters interesting on their own without the “Superfriends” schtick (as they were boldly called in the movie), has worked magnificently for this film, and one can only hope that the character journeys and villains for the upcoming Marvel slate are as well done as in this. Overall, this would get 9 cold bagels out of ten.