After the events of The Avengers Tony Stark is having trouble sleeping and having anxiety attacks.

Rating: 6/10 (7 May 2013)

The Iron Man series of films has a couple of key strengths that put it just ahead of other super hero movies: Robert Downey Junior, the character of Tony Stark and snarky banter. Robert Downey Junior is delightful to watch as Tony Stark quipping his way through life, cracking jokes and just generally being effortlessly cool. He's a lot more fun to be with than brooding tortured souls like Batman, Spider-Man or the Hulk.
The producers of the series know this too and so in the third installment of the franchise they give the audience exactly what we want, lots of Tony Stark being glib, making jokes and being charming. Bringing in Shane Black (writer of Lethal Weapon and director of Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang which is another Robert Downey Junior quip fest) was a great decision in this vein as the man knows how to delivery good banter.
But whilst the dialogue was always the best part of the previous films it wasn't the only aspect necessary to make Iron Man 1, 2 and the Avengers work. For all his glibness Tony Stark as a character has depth. He's a conflicted character using his bravado to mask real feelings of inadequacy, of losing control of his life and fear of death.
This film seems aware that it has to have a character arc for Tony Stark but it forgets to have one. It starts well. In fact the set-up is great. After the events of The Avengers Tony Stark is having trouble sleeping, kept awake at night by nightmares of how he nearly died stopping the alien threat and haunted in the day by hallucinations and anxiety attacks. With his best weapon, his mind, seemingly fracturing two threats emerge. One a terrorist with unclear aims but seemingly immense power named the Mandarin, and the other a mistake from his past in the form of a biomechanical virus named Extremis. In short order Tony is stripped of his home, his supporting cast and even his Iron Man armour. Now the only tool he has left to fight back with is his mind, and he may be slowly losing that too.
That is a brilliant first act with just two problems.
Firstly that's the start of Iron Man 1 with Tony kidnapped and forced to use his wits to escape. Spoilers, he builds a suit of armour and kicks ass. Further spoilers, that does not happen in this film.
Secondly, and more importantly, all of that set up gets tossed away haphazardly in the second act. Tony gets a pep talk from a cute kid and suddenly decides, okay, no more PTSD. There isn't any pay off. It's like the film knows it has to get rid of that stuff so we can have our big fight in the third act but can't think of a satisfying way to do so, so it just drops it.
The psychological set up isn't the only thing that's jettisoned either. The most glaring example of this problem is the Mandarin. Ben Kingsley's Mandarin is fantastic in the early scenes; a terrifying and enigmatic presence that literally interrupts the film to deliver ominous warnings of doom. He's tremendously scary and the audience is eager to learn more about him. Then the second act undercuts all of that with a reveal that, whilst hilarious, leaves a gaping hole where the antagonist should be. Guy Pearce's mad scientist character Aldrich Killian suddenly has to step in and be the bad guy but he doesn't have the charisma or the personality to carry it. That's no slight on Guy Pearce by the way it's a fault with the script. We just don't get enough time with Killian to care when he suddenly becomes the big bad.
The suit is another, similar, problem. At the start of the film Tony gets separated from his Iron Man armours and has to make do with a malfunctioning prototype. Now, unlike the other problematic aspects this one does build on the set-up. Tony has to use improvised weapons and his fast mouth to deal with physical threats until his armour is repaired. All of this builds up to Tony getting back in the suit and kicking righteous butt in the third act. And it does.
The problem is they then proceed to do it again, and again. Tony gets suit, loses suit, gets suit. In fact the final battle is literally Tony getting into one suit after another as each breaks down or gets destroyed in turn. I know that the aim is to literalise the theme of Tony having to rebuild himself but the effect is just one big cinematic cock tease. Your film is called Iron Man, a significant part of the appeal of your film is seeing the man in the robot suit hitting things; get to the money shot people!
Despite my complaints it's not a bad film by any means. I enjoyed it more than Iron Man 2 (which was a bloated overcrowded mess) and there's a lot to like. I loved the banter. I loved the multiple armour designs in the final fight. I loved the stunt with the people falling from the plane. I really, really loved Gary. It's just frustrating that there's one third of a truly great film here that gets sabotaged by its own plot twists.
Flawed but enjoyable.
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