Hope for "Iron Man 3" crumbles like Tony's suits.

Rating: 4/10 (24 August 2013)

As soon as The Avengers finished I said to myself "that was a fun payoff to a mediocre build-up but I'm done with Marvel movies now." I love movies big and small but I'm not a comic book fan and these superhero movies are a formulaic fad that I wish would fade away soon to let another movie-phase through. However, the marketing and the fact Shane Black was writing and directing Iron Man 3 started to make it a one-off exception. Then the reviews came in and the response was mediocre to terribly poor. I really like Black for Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang so I was surprised he could disappoint this badly. The only movies that failed this bad for Marvel have been the Hulk and Thor movies as well as that abysmal third X-Men movie but that's usually because of the poor directors behind the camera. Iron Man has always been a highlight of the series.
I went to a Shane Black talk this Summer at the LA Film Festival and he asked the audience "who went to see that piece of s--t?" He defended himself that he wanted to make Tony more vulnerable and have his machinery break every once in a while but then he admitted defeat that it just didn't work. At first it put me off but then I couldn't help but be curious, what went so horribly wrong? I don't care about official comic book canon so any changes don't particularly faze me but Black changed Iron Man far too significantly from the other movies for it to be ignored. I like the idea that he's trying to show growth with the traumatic events of The Avengers having a big effect on Tony but it's so clumsily handled that it doesn't work. The film isn't actually that bad in its first 45 minutes but when it gets into the meat of the story is when it starts to become ridiculous.
It constantly struggles with momentum, stopping too much for Black's taste in quirky self- referencing humour and none of the characters who deliver that comedic relief suit it, particularly Don Cheadle. The villains and the special effects simply weren't believable, probably due to a lack of explanation. Every left turn or surprise in the story ended up lowering the stakes or taking me out of the moment. But the biggest problem is that Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark of Iron Man 3 is just too mean-spirited to support which is a big problem as there's not nearly enough Iron Man action, and this is coming from the most casual of viewers. The hope for this film crumbles like far many of the suits do when they hit the tiniest of roadblocks. I'll be avoiding the rest of Marvel but hopefully Black can redeem himself with an original and R-rated film like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
4/10