Once more the summer movies are here, bringing with it the onslaught of “The Summer Big Budget Blockbuster”. And in what has become a tradition, Marvel Studios is once more ushering in the beginning of the season with another action packed movie.
This year, Iron Man is back in his third solo adventure: Iron Man 3.
This time around we find our hero Tony Stark haunted, dealing with the events from his time with the Avengers. His world has changed: between encounters with gods and aliens, and his wormhole journey to into space, Tony doesn’t know what to think or what to do. He feels lost and trapped, opening a rift between him and his friends, notably his friend and loved one Pepper.
Enter the Mandarin: the leader of an international terrorist organization hell-bent on destroying America from the inside out. Mix in an old acquaintance, Aldrich Killian, the head of A.I.M (Advance Idea Mechanics) who has something to hide and clearly shouldn’t be trusted, and these characters come together to give us a major action packed movie where Tony Stark faces his hardest challenges yet.
Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Iron Man 2) steps down from his directing chair this time, allowing writer/director Shane Black (Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) to step in. Black brings his recognizable writing style, dark sensibility, and humor to create a different style to the Iron Man world. From the start of the movie you know this is a different animal all together: The design, look and feel are all different, more stylized than the Iron Man series has been thus far.
But is it too different? We’ve come to expect a certain type of film from Marvel Studios at this point, and when you look at them as a whole, this film sticks out. Iron Man 3 falls into the sequel stereotype: everything needs to be bigger, better, and louder. But with their pretty good track record, bigger Marvel films don’t always mean better.
The entire cast turns in great performances, but really, was there ever any doubt? Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Ben Kingsley, and Guy Pearce are all either Oscar nominees or winners. They’re good, and we know they’re good. The returning characters have grown, and the actors show us that growth in their talent and love for their roles. Even newcomers like Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce and James Badge Dale dive in headfirst and come out great – Marvel is good at casting, and this movie is another fine example.
The movie is good. It has a lot of great things and wonderful ideas, maybe too many. There’s a lot going on but not all of it really matters. There is an overall feeling that Marvel bit off more than they could chew. From what we have seen in all the previous Marvel films is that they made their movie very accessible for anyone to understand them, from comic fans to non-comic fans. But now that we’re entering Marvel’s Phase Two, everything is a go!
So Iron Man 3 gets really “comic book-y” real quick, filling up with more exotic elements. This isn’t bad, but it’s very noticeably part of the Marvel cinematic universe now being filled with aliens and gods. Does that mean the movies now need to get more wild and out there? If anything can be taken away from Iron Man 3, it’s that Marvel Studios’ second wave of films are going to get really crazy different real fast.
Special effects in the movie are pretty awesome. Each battle grows crazier as the movie ramps up towards the end. Tony finds himself fighting some genetically engineered humans that can do some really amazing things and some real damage with their powers. They are a real threat to Iron Man and the filmmakers had to come up with some great shots and camera angles to make you feel as if Tony could actually lose. (He won’t, because he’s our hero, but the right tension is there in each scene.)
Another bit that should be mentioned is the art direction and creativity behind each one of Iron Man’s several new suits. He has many different styles of suits, which we assume, have different uses, and each was given a great look. The creativity shown really added to character and feel for the final battle.
Overall Iron Man 3 is a good movie, but not a great one. There are some damn fine moments which demand the audience stand up and yell for Iron Man, but the bits in between often seem nothing more than filler. There’s a lot going on – many twists and turns that are guaranteed to make some fans angrier than the Hulk himself.
Part one is still the best in the series, and the second and third just don’t capture that lighting in a bottle that makes part one an almost perfect comic book film. But at the end of the day we got to spend some more time with our favorite hero on another action-packed adventure. And that’s not a bad thing.