Iron Man 3: Movie Review

Rating: 6/10 (13 May 2013)

After marveling at the cinematic brilliance of The Avengers last year, this year's first Marvel release fell incredibly short of anything close to marvelous. Iron Man 3 like much of the glorified suit of armour in the movie is a clanking hollow shell lacking any real body or substance. It sorely suffers from the titanic box office juggernaut Marvel's The Avengers proved to be and evoked overwhelming feelings of underwhelming disappointment and disenchantment upon its culmination. Damaged by a nonsensical antagonist swerve and a superhero over-utilizing his new remote play feature amidst inexcusable plot holes, aimless disjointed sub-plots, far-fetched role reversals and a sense of going through the motions, this Iron Man installment is nothing short of filler, used as a catalyst to fuel the next phase in the ongoing Avengers (revenue) machine.
Iron Man 3 is a superhero movie sequel co-wrote and directed by Shane Black centered on the Marvel Comics character Iron Man; the third installment in the Iron Man film series and the seventh in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise. Set some time after the events of The Avengers, Iron Man 3 picks up with the supercilious genius industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man who is reeling from the alien invasion of New York, which is causing him to suffer prolonged insomnia and anxiety/panic attacks. Unable to curb his restlessness and anxiety he has taken to his workshop where he has built a legion of Iron Man suits, at the same time detaching himself from the outside world consequently creating tension with his girlfriend Pepper Potts. Concurrently, the Mandarin, a relentless and merciless terrorist orchestrates a string of bombings that leave behind no distinguishable evidence. Stark stirs from his seclusion and issues a televised threat directly to the Mandarin when his world begins to be torn apart at the seams and those closest to him become embroiled, ultimately leading to him going on a good old fashioned revenge mission with one objective in mind; to take down the Mandarin.
Robert Downey Jr. reprising his role as the brash billionaire playboy industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man is at his sardonic best, however, much of the dialogue Downey Jr. professes throughout the film seems on the verge of stand-up comedy rather than the empowering words of a man-made superhero. Also reprising her role as Pepper Potts is Gwyneth Paltrow, her performance though solid is plagued with an implausible narrative for her character, and the camaraderie between her and Downey Jr. seems forced at times. Ben Kingsley's portrayal of credulous Tony Slattery otherwise known as the Mandarin is good for what it is, and Don Cheadle as the Iron Patriot formerly the War Machine got lost in the narrative somewhat but nevertheless provided a satisfactory performance for the parts and dialogue he was given. On a more positive note, Guy Pearce provided a stellar performance as the unstable scientist Aldrich Killian, a rivaling industrialist to Tony Stark with an underlying resentment for his fledging genius counterpart. Nonetheless, despite a couple of passable performances, notably those of Downey Jr. and Pearce, Iron Man 3 was sorely lacking character portrayals worthy of the audience's time investment.
Shane Black takes over the helm of the Iron Man film series from Jon Favreau after his lackluster Iron Man 2 and teams up with Robert Downey Jr. who he last worked with on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. In hindsight perhaps Iron Man 3 could have been renamed to suit its premise more; Remote Control Iron Man, maybe Pepper Man, possibly even Avengers Hangover, these would all suffice, but How a Rich Man Copes with Seeing Aliens seems to fit best. Too much of Tony Stark's vulnerability was exposed in this movie which diminished the character we have all warmed to, the exuberant larger-than-life billionaire playboy/superhero. By divulging Stark's susceptibility to the strains of life to the extent it has in Iron Man 3 it makes it a lot easier to understand if he were to finally hang up his proverbial boots for good; not a good thing for a superhero film series with unfinished business. In addition to this, there is an underlying disconnect from the outset much like Stark with his beloved iron suit(s) in a significant proportion of this movie, by opting for the sympathy vote it is apparent Black has alienated viewers such as myself who want to see a superhero at the height of their powers overcome evil. By the end the very thing that ties Tony Stark to Iron Man is away with the wind, which is ironically where big-budget filmmaking intelligence went when this movie was produced. Here's hoping the remaining parts of the Avengers machine have not depreciated like its iron core has evidently done.
Even the post-credits sequence connected to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe seemed needless and afforded nothing to entice in terms of reasons to be eager to want to watch the forthcoming Avengers movie or the next entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise. However, ironically the ending cameo encapsulated the essence of the entire Iron Man 3 movie, a psychiatric evaluation of a perturbed superhero.
On the contrary, Iron Man 3 is not a categorical disaster; it packed in enough explosive action and vivacious backdrops into a lengthy 2 hour 15 minute running time to at least be aesthetically pleasing to the viewer. Although when you look behind the niceties there is not much to write home about.
Nevertheless, Iron Man 3 is a frantic overblown popcorn flick that lacks any real conviction and can be only described as a damp squib. Like all superhero movies, the superhero is only as good as it's adversary, and in this case the adversary was not worthy. As a stand-alone franchise it's clearly demonstrable that it is suffering, as part of an even bigger picture, Iron Man's appeal is draining with only 5% power and the odds of it reaching maximum altitude again are slim to none.