How About a little Back to Basics!

Rating: 7/10 (15 May 2013)

REMEMBERING THAT HUMOR has long been both an integral part as well as a sort of trademark of writer Stan Lee's work, the IRON MAN films certainly must rank high on the totem pole of comics to film adaptations. Added to this is the interpretation of the character by Mr. Robert Downey, Jr. and the wise cracking dialog between the principal characters, Downey and Miss Gwyneth Paltrow.
AS FOR THE SPECIAL effects,. need we say more? The FX in the modern super hero flick are a given. Long before a patron plinks down the price of a ticket, he knows what to expect. He (or She) is never surprised with the smörgåsbord of explosions, car chases, gun battles and general mayhem that unfolds several times during a two hour feature. As Stan Lee would say, "'Nuff said."
NOT SURPRISINGLY OUR main criticism of IRON MAN 3 involves what we like to refer to this pandemic of "Creeping Revisionism" on the part of so many of these screenwriters. Whereas, we certainly do not expect that a scribe who's worth his weight in Golden Age Comics should or would just rewrite the same old stuff over and over again! What'd be the point?
BUT THE BASIS of any updating should not violate. For example: in BATMAN (1989) the Joker is named as the killer* of Bruce Wayne's parents and the Joker is killed off at films end.** In SPIDERMAN, Peter Parker's (Toby Maguire) displays some sort of mutation in the wrists that shoots the spider webs; whereas that "power" had always been the result of some sort of "wrist squirt guns"; which dispatched webs of a type of super strong latex (or something).
THIS PASSION FOR rewriting is most evident is one aspect of IRON MAN 3. That is their treatment and handling of the character of The Mandarin.
WE RECALL THE origin of the feud between Tony Stark's alter ego and this rogue Chinese Warlord. To begin with, the Mandarin was obviously a sort of knock off of Sax Rohmer's DR. FU MANCHU; being a 'Roadshow' Fu Manchu, if you will. That would also put him on the same family tree with Alex Raymond's villain, Emperor Ming (the Merciless) in FLASH GORDON.
WHAT WE GET instead is a sort of comics hybrid between the real Mandarin and Hosama Bin Laden. Add to that a voice that has the accent of some "Good Old Boy." The ultimate misuse of literary license is in making the Mandarin a sham, a phony front man for the true villain, (Guy Pearce).
OTHER THAN THAT, we view the big action scenes in most of these Super Hero Epics as looking increasingly like the electronic games, which they've spawned. Anyway, the line between the two becomes more and more blurred.
NOTE * Any Batman fan knows that the true killer was Joe Chill, a low level street thug & stick up man.
NOTE: ** The process of Joker's dying is repeated in DARK KNIGHT; leaving one to conclude that the Batman Franchise is turning into SOUTH PARK.