An old review from 2013 on one MCU movie I've never really loved

Rating: 6/10 (20 April 2020)

I'm not a huge comic book kind of guy, yet I still love a well-made comic book movie as much as the next person. Nolan's Batman trilogy is a great one- his film's have a few minor flaws but ultimately all three of them are gripping and entertaining. The first Iron Man was surprisingly good. It's been a while since I watched the Spiderman movies, but I remember enjoying them for the most part. Seeing The Avengers last year was one of the most fun trips to the movies I've ever had.
So it was disappointing for me to come out of Iron Man 3 feeling letdown. Had I hyped myself up for it too much? Yes and no- I thought the trailer was great, and it got me pretty excited. Early reviews were extremely positive, and my expectations were heightened further. Then the movie was released to the general public, and I noticed a number of negative to mediocre user reviews on IMDB. I didn't read any of them in detail, and for the most part just assumed that they were nit-picky reviews from die-hard fans of the comics disappointed about some minor detail that wasn't a concern to me- ("oh, his suit doesn't look quite right." I myself couldn't care less.) And it really sucks, but I'm going to have to side with these less positive reviews because I felt incredibly underwhelmed by this film, and I'll try my best to explain why without revealing any major spoilers, as I'm aware this film is only just coming out now.
Iron Man 3 is completely inconsistent in its tone and style. While this is probably the Iron Man film with the most attempts at humour, it is also the "darkest" Iron Man film yet (other people's words, not mine). I don't actually think the movie really succeeds in being darker and grittier but I can tell that the film-maker's probably wanted to make something a little edgier, but then kind of destroyed the chance of that happening by throwing in a near constant stream of goofy jokes. There's a few too many in this movie, and they don't all work.
Mind you, there were some moments I laughed- but there were other times I sat there shaking my head because a number of the jokes felt so forced and out of place. There's no proper dramatic moments in the film because most of it's just too damn goofy. There's no tension, no nail-biting moments. Our main protagonist seems aware that he's in a goofy comedy action film, and therefore he knows that he's never in any real danger. I wasn't a fan of Iron Man 2, but at least he was vulnerable for a good portion of that movie, and in that case at least a little compelling. Here, he loses a lot- this was heavily implied, almost shown by the trailer- yet it never really seems to hurt his progress. He shrugs off devastating circumstances because he knows he's fine. He knows Disney and Marvel will never properly harm one of their biggest and most popular money-making characters.
I get it. I understand nothing too tragic will ever affect Iron Man himself, but I wish the character didn't also know this. We need a believable character we can root for, who not only goes through tough times but is affected by them. And yes, the events of The Avengers are brought up, and Tony Stark keeps telling us that he's traumatised by what happened, but you never really FEEL his fear, you're just told about it. Ultimately he still has no qualms about using his suit, and his physical strength is never weakened. Hell, he's still real cocky too, telling The Mandarin his home address so the antagonist will bring the fight to Tony's doorstep- hardly the actions of a "defeated" and "traumatised" man.
And yes, I know I'm complaining about the goofy tone in this movie, and yes, I know The Avengers, which I already mentioned I was a big fan of, was also quite goofy. But it was a consistent sort of goofiness- the humour was so purely "Joss Whedon-ey" and it just flowed and pretty much every joke worked. The humour in Iron Man 3 is, like a Will Ferrell comedy, quite hit and miss, and feels more out of place considering Iron Man 3 is "supposed" to be a grittier and more intense Iron Man film.
I've always thought that one of the key factors in making a protagonist easy to root for (I accidentally nearly wrote "root-worthy" there) is by forcing them to face an absolutely despicable villain. You don't even need a particularly compelling protagonist if you have an absolutely vile antagonist- just look at the 2010 Japanese film 13 Assassins, a sort of modern re-telling of Seven Samurai, which shows the main villain using a captive family (children included) as target practice in order to improve his archery skills. He is a villain so unlikeable that the final showdown between him and his army vs the titular thirteen assassins becomes extremely compelling, as we as the audience want him dead- badly.
The villain department in Iron Man 3 is very disappointing. Ben Kingsley is wasted as The Mandarin, a bizarre character who we never really get to see face Iron Man in the way we'd like to see- a character and an actor so under-utilised it hurts. Kingsley's voice is also absolutely absurd- was it meant to be menacing or something? It's even sillier than Bane's from The Dark Knight Rises.
The main antagonist of the film really has no clear motive. Yes, he wants to rule the world and get rich and have power and stuff, but why does he have such a grudge against Iron Man? We are given a reason, but I thought it was a pretty weak one.
Also: the already infamous twist is dumb. I didn't like it. That's all I'll say.
Iron Man 3 has a great cast, but they're not very well utilised. Don Cheadle is in about one scene in the film's first hour, and after that becomes a boringly standard black sidekick for Tony Stark. Gwenyth Paltrow yells at Tony a lot and becomes a damsel in distress when the plot requires her to be. Guy Pearce is... okay. Nothing about his performance really stood out- Sorry Guy, this one's probably not gonna get you on the Hollywood A-list either. Keep trying.
I'm a bit mixed on Robert Downey Jr. He's good, he's fairly entertaining, and even while not all his jokes work he delivers them to the best of his ability, and to his credit he makes most of them at least decent. But the man's been playing this character in all his movies lately, and it's kind of getting annoying. His acting range isn't really stretched too far in this film either, because Tony Stark really doesn't act like that much of a changed man, even if he keeps telling the film's other characters (and the audience) that he is. So Downey Jr's good, but I'd like to see the actor pick a few more diverse roles in his future (does anyone remember him in Natural Born Killers? He was amazing in that movie- my favourite aspect of that film by far).
Then there's the minor plot holes and inconsistencies- every big budget Hollywood action film nowadays seems to have them- not even the very good The Dark Knight Rises and the excellent The Avengers from last year were free of them. Things like Tony putting an Iron Man suit on Pepper at one point to save her from danger, and then telling a disappointed Rhodes later in the film that he can't wear one because they're only modeled to fit Tony. Then there's the un-justified fact that Tony's armour is far weaker in this film than it was in the previous Iron Man films and The Avengers- it falls apart like rusted scrap metal on a number of locations. To mention too many more inconsistencies and questionable details would start to spoil things, but trust me, they're there, and they're bothersome.
Then there's the stupid kid character who spends a few scenes with Tony Stark, played by a terrible child actor. If he becomes "Iron Man Junior" at some point in a future Marvel film I'll likely lose my cool or something. And there's the awful and unnecessary 3D I unfortunately saw the film in. No, you don't have to see the film 3D, and again no, you shouldn't. It makes a fairly dark and murky film even murkier and darker, and while some things "pop" out a little, ultimately it just makes most of the scenes look kind of fuzzy. Detail is largely lost, colours are made bland, and it makes it look like most of the scenes are poorly lit. 3D can work from time to time, but seriously, it has to stop being shoe-horned into movies where it's not needed. I saw Oblivion earlier this week- it wasn't in 3D and it was absolutely gorgeous, with a stunning colour palette, fantastic detail, and damn near breath taking scenery that still "popped" even without the 3D effect. Even if you disagree with my thoughts of this film, I'm sure you'll be able to at least understand my little rant on 3D there.
Well, there's the negatives, at least most of them. This review's going to be rather unbalanced because I'm not about to spend another 1500 words talking about the good stuff, even though there was stuff that worked. The action was pretty good- unfortunately there wasn't much of it, and none of it was on the same scale that the final battle in The Avengers was, but the "plane rescue" sequence looked great, and the climax on the oil rig at night was quite good- or at least it would've been if lousy 3D effects hadn't been there to make the whole thing kind of hard to see. Robert Downey Jr was good, even if his acting is becoming a little stale, and a sizeable amount of the humour does work- it just doesn't quite always gel with the and a sizeable amount of the humour does work- it just doesn't quite always gel with the "darker and edgier" story this movie was supposed to be telling.
Just go in with moderate expectations- this is probably not going to be your next favourite superhero film- but with the right mindset and controlled expectations, it could at least be an enjoyable trip to the movies.