Demons

Rating: 7/10 (1 May 2016)

In preparation for the upcoming Captain America: Civil War film, I've decided to go back and reexamine Iron Man and Cap's previous entries that I haven't reviewed.
Whereas the first two Iron Man films become better with repeated viewings, I think Iron Man 3 is far less re-watchable. Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the handful of defenders for the film, but the third entry just doesn't have the same spark as the first two films do. Shane Black takes the film in a much darker direction. That's fine, especially considering what Stark went through during the events of Avengers, but I think there was something missing in Iron Man 3, and I think the tone has a lot to do with that.
Considering the film begins with the Eiffel 65 classic Blue (da ba dee), Iron Man 3 is a bit of a departure from the previous Iron Man films. Disappointingly, the film also doesn't contain any AC/DC songs or Ramin Djawadi's score. It does however, supply a memorable score from Brian Tyler. Besides that, all of the actors are back and the cast welcomes in Rebecca Hall, Guy Pearce, and Ben Kingsley in pivotal roles. Tony and Pepper are now living together *happily* with Happy and Rhodey not too far away.
I understand people wanted the film to take a different approach after the mixed response to Iron Man 2, but this film was missing Jon Favreau's touch. Not only did he not come back to direct the film, but Happy only gets a few scenes as he's hospitalized for the majority of the run time. Don Cheadle has more action, but Tony Stark in Tennessee for the entire second act, I felt like I needed more Rhodey as well. If anything else, the problem with Iron Man 3 is the writing. Downey and Paltrow still have magnetic chemistry, but everything else feels different from the previous entries.
That brings me to the infamous Mandarin reveal. I actually don't have as much of an issue with the direction they took Kingsley's character as everyone else does. With that said, I can't say I wasn't at least a little disappointed that there was no real presence of the ten rings or anything that felt all that threatening. I'm glad they decided to have a villain not in an Iron Man type suit to give Tony something different to fight, but as great as Guy Pearce is in other films, he just didn't do it for me as Aldrich Killian.
There is definitely something to the argument that this film needed more Iron Man. Ty Simpkins plays Stark's tech sidekick back in Tennessee, and he's good, but I would have liked to see a little bit more Iron Man screen time. But the counter argument to that would be that Tony Stark is just as entertaining as the metal head himself. And that the insomniac Stark they were going for, kind of makes sense. The central theme of 'demons' was an interesting take and probably the most necessary one at that particular stage in the universe. I can appreciate the gutsiness by the filmmakers to approach the character in this way, if only The Incredibles hadn't really done the exact same premise 9 years prior.
Overall, I really like Iron Man 3. It's a much different take on Tony Stark and it was the next logical step for the Marvel Universe. I just wish the writing had been more in the vein of the first two Iron Man's and not strayed too far away from what we love so much about this character.
+Insomniac Stark
+Fully functional Pepper & Tony
+Tyler's score
+Cheadle gets more action
-Different approach to the villains didn't pay off
-Needed a bit more humor
7.8/10