I’m going to start off by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. That being said, I did not get caught up in all the hype (as much as I wanted to). I found this to be a worthy sequel that was vastly superior to the 2nd Iron Man, but fell short to the mojo that the first installment of this franchise produced. It was a slick piece of action film making that ultimately falls victim to it’s own grandiosity.
So the first question: Is this a sequel to Iron Man 2 or to the Avengers? I know most fans, myself included, just want to forget Iron Man 2 ever happened. It’s actually a sequel to both, but let’s just say that it’s The Avengers direct sequel as much of the movie is Tony Stark dealing with the emotional aftermath of the events in that movie. Iron Man 3 marks the first salvo in Marvel Studio’s ‘Phase 2’ plan. The first phase culminated in the glorious Avengers movie and now the second phase will continue until Avengers 2 (nice how that works out). This movie is a great start and prepares us for the Thor, Captain America, and Guardians of the Galaxy movies that will be coming in the next year.
Iron Man 3 is big and brash and fun. No doubt about it. The story starts in the aftermath of the Avengers movie with Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey JR) dealing with the emotional problems caused by his experiences from the alien attack on Earth. He can’t sleep and has frequent anxiety attacks. Despite all of this, RDJ’s trademark sardonic quips and one liners are in play and often, IMHO, overshadow the story itself. I felt the story itself was weak and most of the movie rested on special effects and waiting to see RDJ go off on humorous rants. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy great special effects and always respect RDJ’s razor wit and this was a great showcase for them, but it could have been a much greater film if it balanced the style with a little more substance.
The introduction of the Mandarin as an Osama Bin Laden type villain starts off promisingly enough, but soon fizzles out albeit in an amusing fashion. The Mandarin was never a great comic book villain, but there was a lot of unrealized potential here. Even the seemingly secondary villain of Aldrich Killian seemed a little ‘cartoonish’ for my taste. The organization he represented; A.I.M., was not fully developed as it could have been given that in the comic story they are the evil nemesis of S.H.E.I.L.D. These may seem like petty complaints, but all of the conflict situations felt forced and artificial to me, especially Tony’s anxiety attacks which just seemed to come out of nowhere and with no real resolutions.
Again, I’m complaining a lot here, but that is more out of love for the character and a distaste of manufactured big budget special effect movies. This was a fun ride and a lot of super hero fun that captures why so many of us loved superheroes when we were younger. Iron Man the movies have been far more impressive than the character or the comic books were in the Marvel universe, so hats off for not only making Iron Man the flagship of these movies, but improving on the character. Marvel has done an exceptional job at bringing their characters to the big screen. Each one makes me look forward to the next. So despite my critique, I have a lot of respect for this movie. It’s hard to imagine that the original director, Jon Favreau, had to fight to get RDJ cast as Iron man. I can’t imagine anyone else in this role (although RDJ hinted that someone will eventually have to take over the character from him).
A very fun time at the movies. However, go expecting a roller coaster ride of fun over substance.
I give this film *** stars
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