MeekinOnMovies on….Iron Man 3

Poor
Iron Man. So far the guy’s been saddled with launching the Marvel
Cinematic universe in his first outing, introducing that universe’s
characters like Black Widow in his sequel, and carrying a good portion
of The Avengers,
too – it’s the kind of stuff that’ll lead a man to drink. So, It’s safe
to say Iron Man deserves some credit and a little breathing room. But
instead, he’s been tasked with being the first post-Avengers
Marvel universe flick, and must contend with heightened expectations, a
new director, and a good section of the audience that are very
possibility only in it for the 30 or so seconds after the credits.

Following his near-self-sacrifice in The Avengers, Iron Man 3
finds Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) a man obsessed. Obsessed with his
armor, obsessed with protecting his girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth
Paltrow), and despite the technology at his fingertips, ultimately
feeling more vulnerable than ever thanks to the presence of Ben
Kingsley’s “The Mandarin”; a vicious terrorist responsible for worldwide
bombings and a multitude of threats leveled at America, and scientist
Aldrich Killian (Guy Perace) wooing Pepper, just a bit, while expositing
on his Extremis virus providing untold possibility.

Without
spoiling too much, the plot is quality comic-book pulp, and a bit more
fantastic than the first two Iron Man movies, involving multiple humans
with special abilities that aren’t technologically enhanced (in the
standard way), as well as Tony dealing with the fallout from his
near-death experience in New York at the end of The Avengers.
The plot isn’t too complex, and it suits Iron Man’s action-comedy
stylings, allowing Robert Downey Jr. to mug for the camera and interact
with his co-stars in naturalistic ways that makes everything feel a bit
more real, despite the ludicrous nature of what’s going on in the flick.  

The
biggest change is obviously the directorial switch from Jon Favreau to
“Lethal Weapon” writer Shane Black. The differences are mostly cosmetic.
Favreau had a keen eye for the “coolness” of the Tony Star character.
Hot cars, cool technology, hot women, all were handled with a sense of
“look how great it is to be Tony Stark”, his Iron Man
efforts had just a hint of “Entourage” in them, along with an
improvised, mumbling quality to the dialog that, again, made the
ludicrous things happening on screen feel a bit more real. Shane Black
seems to care more about Tony Stark the person. Sure, Tony drives his
awesome car, and has his awesome mansion, but these things are treated
in a matter-of-fact way – we’re more inside Tony’s head for this one,
where fancy cars and pretty girls and flying robot death machines are a
part of day-to-day life.

The last two “Iron Man” movies had an incredible burden of setting up Avengers,
the Marvel universe, and shoe-horning in Nick Fury, Agent Coulson,
Black Widow, and so on. “Iron Man 3” get to be it’s own little self
contained picture, ultimately devoid of that “Avengers” hype, so, it
will probably feel lackluster to audiences who wanted some tidbits on
what Joss Whedon and Marvel think “Phase Two” would entail. But, the thing
about this movie is that it’s actually the most comic-booky of all the
Marvel movies so far. Crazy stuff happens to characters, there’s
interesting plot twists and turns, and like a comic book it follows up
on the last big crossover event, too. Iron Man 3
features a lot of asides on how different the world is since the
arrival of Thor, Hulk, and Captain America, and how everyone is, well, a
bit scared. These touches are welcome, but don’t over-power the movie.

But
I had..a couple of problems with the flick, a Deus Ex Machina chimes in
at just the right time in the third act, canceling out a big twist and
saving Tony in the same eye-rolling moment, which is irksome. There’s
also a weird “Terminator 2” vibe throughout the entire movie, between
the location of the climax and the way enemy super-powers are handled –
Robert Patrick would be right at home here. I also didn’t like how a
certain supporting character got certain abilities, but again, that’s
something that’d you’d find perfectly acceptable in a standard
comic-book event that’s a a bit…weird on screen at first – growing
pains and all.

Anyway, objectively, no Iron Man 3 is
not *as good* as the first two movies (and I liked the second one quite
a lot, actually), but it’s very good in it’s own way, summer
blockbuster way,  too.The “cool” factor is gone, but it’s replaced by a
lot of stuff I did like. I liked that they ret-conned the little
ear-buds that they wore in Avengers (Tony loses his, puts it in his ear,
and you can see it’s impossible to see from a straight-on camera angle,
cute), I liked the kid Tony meets about halfway through the flick, I
liked that they kept bringing up “New York” then never quite resolved it
(probably saving it for later), and I loved the way they handled the
Mandarin simply because Ben Kingsley is the only person on the planet
that could pull it off and not have the audience fart all over it.