“Iron Man 3” Review
After losing his home and resources, Iron Man must embrace his limitations to defeat a terrorist threat in “Iron Man 3.”
Out of all the Marvel films, “Iron Man 3” is one that gets talked about the least which is shocking considering that it’s the highest grossing “Iron Man” film and was the first Marvel film to be released after “The Avengers.” It’s also surprisingly underrated with a much stronger plot than “Iron Man 2” and is a more than worthy film to end the “Iron Man” trilogy.
After the Battle of New York in “The Avengers,” Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) has begun to obsessively craft dozens of Iron Man suits and suffer panic attacks due to PTSD in light of the battle. But when a masterful terrorist known as The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) begins to commit attacks against the United States, Tony must try to control his condition and utlize his brilliance to save the day.
After the films “Thor,” “Captain America: The First Avenger” and “The Avengers,” having a more grounded film like “Iron Man 3” was definitely a good call by Marvel. Whenever it seems like Marvel is making one kind of film, they immediately try something else to keep things diverse. While Jon Favreau was a great director of “Iron Man” and “Iron Man 2,” Shane Black was a great choice to continue the series with Black’s other work including writing the first two “Lethal Weapons” and directing action comedies like “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “The Nice Guys.”
The idea of taking Iron Man and having him fight terrorists again was a welcome return because not only can many people understand this fight, but the business rivals of the first two films were kind of dull. The biggest moment of the previous films where I thought to myself “that’s Iron Man” was in the first film where he saved a village from terrorists.
It’s actually becoming really hard to say anything new about Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark because he’s just so damn good. He’s the usual charming billionaire but this film actually has him be responsible and try to look out for Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow) and his best friends Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) and War Machine (Don Cheadle).
Once aliens landed on Earth and New York was nearly destroyed, it’s kind of ridiculous to still see Tony Stark act like an ass. He’s still got his moments of narcissism and quippy lines but he’s definitely grown as a person.
However, when Happy is nearly killed by a Mandarin terrorist attack, Tony does one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen a superhero do. He tells The Mandarin his home address on the news and, shockingly, Tony’s home is attacked and he nearly dies. This is one of the film’s biggest problems because, not only does it make no sense for him to do something that idiotic, but The Mandarin could have just found his home through hacking.
With that said, when Tony loses his home and is presumed dead, he begins to investigate the Mandarin with the help of a young kid named Harley (Ty Simpkins) which is one of the highlights of the film. One of the benefits of seeing Tony fall on his ass is that his rise is all the more rewarding, especially when he has limited resources. Under pressure, he can make a suit of armor, synthesize a new element or, in this film, track down a terrorist and save the President of the United States.
It’s also great to see Tony working with others after opening himself up in “Iron Man 2” and “The Avengers.” Besides working with Harley, War Machine and Pepper help Tony fight this new threat.
(From Right) With the assistance of a kid named Harley, Tony repairs his Iron Man suit and tracks down The Mandarin.
Despite the story and characters of “Iron Man 3” being stronger than its predecessor, mostly because the narrative feels less bloated, the Marvel curse of uninteresting villains continues. While Ben Kingsley appears to have a intimidating presence as The Mandarin, he’s revealed to be a pathetic actor named Trevor Slattery who was enlisted by the real mastermind Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), another business rival of Tony who has a grudge against him for being wronged in the past.
But, unlike Obidiah Stane or Justin Hammer, this guy actually has superpowers and has an army of terrorists that can heal themselves and conduct heat. He’s still bland though. Not to mention, saying that this guy is The Mandarin was pretty disrespectful to a powerful comic book villain. While a Marvel short film, “All Hail The King,” made it clear the real Mandarin existed, it would be eight years before we saw him in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.”
Not to mention the actual motivation for the villain is surprisingly weak. It’s just a basic political sabotage and it’s not given the time to develop. It’s basically a surprise twist towards the last half hour of the film.
But what makes this film a fun ride, besides the actors and the character growth, is the action. Some of the sequences are incredibly inventive like when a bunch of people are sucked out of Air Force One and Iron Man has to save all of them. The climax is also incredible with all of Tony’s suits arriving to fight the army of Killian’s terrorists. Seeing all the different kinds of armors with unique abilities, as well as Tony going from suit to suit, is very entertaining and was a lot of fun.
The ending also really puts Tony into perspective by having all of his suits blow up and getting the shrapnel taken out of his chest, rendering the ARC reactor that was keeping him alive obsolete. While Tony puts down the suits to focus on his friendships and Pepper, the ending lets us know that he’ll always be Iron Man and he’s come a long way from that cave.
While it’s not a perfect film and not as good as the original, “Iron Man 3” is a pretty good high note to end the series of films centered around Tony Stark. While Robert Downey Jr. would continue to play the character for six more years, this is a memorable chapter in the character who built the MCU.
