IRON MAN 3

Iron Man 3 (2013)

Grade: B-

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Jon Favreau, James Badge Dale, Ben Kingsley, Ty Simpkins and William Sadler

Premise: When a terrorist named the Mandarin threatens the world with grisly war, genius billionaire Tony Stark has to muster his resources to confront and defeat him.

Rated PG-13 for intense action violence, some gory and disturbing content, language and brief suggestive material

Okay, okay, okay, so Marvel movies aren’t made for guys like me. I guess it says a lot about me that my favorite movie of last year was Les Miserables. Whereas most people go to movies wanting to be entertained, I go wanting to be moved, touched, changed. Several people were appalled at my merely lukewarm reaction to last year’s Marvel superhero jackpot, The Avengers, and they’ll probably be appalled at my similar reaction to Iron Man 3. Yes, I can watch some movies and just be glad to be entertained, but, in general, I desire more from movies than explosions and jokes.

Plot: Surprisingly, carefree genius billionaire Tony Stark (the always-entertaining Robert Downey Jr.) didn’t walk away from the events of The Avengers unscathed. Though he’s as rich and famous as ever, and now has a consistent, happily serious relationship with the comely Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), he’s a little off. He was always a workaholic, but now it seems he’s diving into the endless creation and tweaking of his patented weaponized iron suits in order to avoid having to stop and think. He’s dissatisfied with his work, he’s having nightmares, he even has the odd all-consuming panic attack. And that’s even before two ghosts from his past—a brilliant botanist (The Town’s Rebecca Hall) he once spent a night with and an ambitious braniac whose interest and ideas he once spurned (Guy Pearce, who will never, ever, play a decent human being in a movie)—reappear in harrowing fashion, distracting him just as he’s preparing to engage in all-out war with a terrifying criminal mastermind called the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley). With his safety and girlfriend in jeopardy, his mind not quite what it has been in the past, and the President of the United States (William Sadler) requesting his help, Tony is forced to up his game to confront the types of assaults and weapons he never imagined existed.

What Works?

Popcorn movies like this always, absolutely always, must have a few good setpieces up their sleeves, and this one is no different, and it uses several of them well. From the sobering destruction of Tony’s Oceanside mansion to an impressive mid-air rescue, Iron Man 3 delivers the goods when it needs to. There are also some great jokes, some genuinely surprising twists, and nearly as much engaging drama as there’s ever been in a superhero movie not directed by Christopher Nolan. This film can’t match the 2008 original for sheer fresh, creative wit and panache, but it’s a big step up from the tepid 2010 sequel that was basically a warm up for The Avengers (speaking of which, I was a little sorry to see that, even after Avengers’ monumental success, this film does not feature either Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury or Scarlett Johanssen’s Black Widow, both of whom were crucial to Iron Man 2).

Acting

Thanks largely to this role as the cocky but genuinely smart and dynamic Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. has proven to be one of the most watchable actors alive, and it’s no different this time around. While the actor is forced to navigate some uneven waters from this film’s shifts in tone (he has to go from bravura action star or shocked, stunned dramatic hero to absurdist comic in the same breath, never mind the same scene, on multiple occasions), he remains a guy you root for without fail. Sparring partner/romantic opposite Gwyneth Paltrow gets a bigger, juicier role this time around, and the movie’s the better for it. Pearce has his usual devilish fun playing a despicable villain, Don Cheadle kicks the crap out of some bad guys as Tony’s commando friend Colonel James Rhodes, and James Badge Dale brings some real menace to his role as bad guy Pearce’s No. 2. However, the mannered Rebecca Hall and the solid Kingsley are largely overlooked, with the exception of a bizzaro twist to Kingsley’s character that completely threw me.

What Doesn’t Work?

One of the main reasons I didn’t go wild for The Avengers was that, I kept saying, I felt like I’d already seen it. Sure it was cool to see The Hulk and Thor and Captain America in the same scene with Iron Man, but I’d seen dudes with special powers fighting interstellar/dastardly human villains before. Iron Man 3, then, since it doesn’t even have the added bonus of all the other guys, suffers from the same problem. As mentioned, there are a couple sequences here that I hadn’t seen the like of before and derived a legitimate thrill from, but the action scenes go on forever, and, as mentioned, the very sudden shifts in tone—tons of jokes come across as self-conscious, awkward, or just plain unnecessary. And, clocking in at two-plus hours and feeling like it, Iron Man 3 is definitely longer and more cluttered than it needs to be.

Content

For all the whiz/bang nature of its bread-and-butter content, Iron Man 3 is only mildly unsettling. It’s crazy violent, but, with the exception of an instance or two, it’s all in the neat PG-13 popcorn blockbuster package. There’s barely any blood, little cussing, little actual sinister content, and, despite an abundance of scantily-clad babes, nothing particularly suggestive. Iron Man 3 is not out to shock anyone; it’s out to make money.

Bottom Line: A step up from the halfhearted Iron Man 2 but not nearly as much fun as last year’s Avengers, Iron Man 3 has Downey Jr., Paltrow, Pearce, some cool action and some memorable moments, but it’s getting harder and harder for Marvel movies to really jump out and amaze. This is a passable summer action flick.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

Directed by Shane Black

Written for the Screen by Shane Black and Drew Pearce; Based on the comic book by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby

Rated PG-13

Length: 130 minutes