Iron Man 3Director: Shane Black
Writers: Drew Pearce & Shane Black
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Ben Kingsley.
So at the conclusion of the film I turned to the person next to me and said "That was pretty awesome." "...Really?" He replied. When I went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness last week the same thing happened, with the positions reversed. Ultimately I've decided that Iron Man 3 falls into The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble, whatever) (2012, Whedon) category
for me. I enjoyed the escapism of watching it at the time, but on further reflection ultimately found it hopelessly flawed and just a bit rubbish really.
Tony Stark has always been by his very nature, a roguish, seemingly-unaffected playboy. It's not often that we get to see a darker, more serious side to his personality. The psychology of the Iron Man suit is something that has long been a running theme through the films and graphic novels, and this could've been an opportunity to further explore what lies beneath the surface, and the separation of Stark from the Iron Man persona. Instead what we get is a film that makes explicit references to trying to go in for something darker but essentially toes the tragicomedy line a little too finely, rendering Stark's emotion pain and PTSD shallow and unaffecting. The humour itself was often quite poor and totally undermined any attempt to explore the psyche. There's a couple of references to what Stark/Iron Man went through during the events of The Avengers, but no real development on that beyond the weird conversations he has with the kid and the occasional panic attacks, which conveniently stop happening right around the climax of the film and are never mentioned again.
Tony Stark has always been by his very nature, a roguish, seemingly-unaffected playboy. It's not often that we get to see a darker, more serious side to his personality. The psychology of the Iron Man suit is something that has long been a running theme through the films and graphic novels, and this could've been an opportunity to further explore what lies beneath the surface, and the separation of Stark from the Iron Man persona. Instead what we get is a film that makes explicit references to trying to go in for something darker but essentially toes the tragicomedy line a little too finely, rendering Stark's emotion pain and PTSD shallow and unaffecting. The humour itself was often quite poor and totally undermined any attempt to explore the psyche. There's a couple of references to what Stark/Iron Man went through during the events of The Avengers, but no real development on that beyond the weird conversations he has with the kid and the occasional panic attacks, which conveniently stop happening right around the climax of the film and are never mentioned again.
I can't really fault the acting, Downey Jr. is the epitome of Tony Stark as always. Guy Pearce has previously endeared himself to me through his work with John Hillcoat and he does make a superb, sleazy villain. Ben Kingsley is a great actor, and he shows it here through his dual role, though he is seriously underused. Paltrow is, well, I've never really liked her as an actress, nor I have I liked her Iron Man character. Upgraded here to official 'Iron Man's girlfriend' status,
Pepper becomes even more of an annoying Mary-Jane, centre of everyone's universe,
character. She is the central female, the one that all the male characters are concerned about all the time. There's even a moment where, when kidnapped, she refers to herself as Killian's (Pearce) "trophy". The only other central female character, Maya, intelligent, likeable, shrewd, is
eventually denounced, punished and forgotten for daring to get too close to Stark. (But she's a brunette, so I guess we shoulda seen that coming.) And what the hell is up with a) The fact that Pepper survived falling from a great height into a fiery explosion whilst other extremis altered characters were taken out by much less and b) her seemingly flame retardant bra.
On the subject of characters, there's been a lively debate around The Mandarin in Iron Man 3. Personally I think that the way they subverted everyone's expectations isn't a terrible thing, but I would much rather have seen more of Kingsley portraying The Mandarin as opposed to Trevor Slattery, particularly some confrontation between Iron Man and The Mandarin with his character functioning as a real antagonist instead of a mere front. Arguably that plotline also throws up some thorny issues of race and terrorism, exemplified through Kingsley's musings on the origins of fortune cookies.
On the subject of characters, there's been a lively debate around The Mandarin in Iron Man 3. Personally I think that the way they subverted everyone's expectations isn't a terrible thing, but I would much rather have seen more of Kingsley portraying The Mandarin as opposed to Trevor Slattery, particularly some confrontation between Iron Man and The Mandarin with his character functioning as a real antagonist instead of a mere front. Arguably that plotline also throws up some thorny issues of race and terrorism, exemplified through Kingsley's musings on the origins of fortune cookies.
Overall, the story was just a bit too silly. And what was the point of setting it at Christmas? The continual references to the time of year used as a poor form of emotional connection or cheesy comic relief, I'm not sure which. I'm not saying it was an awful film, it was better put together than its predecessor (Iron Man 2, 2010) but with the materials available the finished product could've been so much more than it was. The references to Tony's PTSD, the making of the suits as therapy (which ultimately doesn't work because hello, he's been making things all his life, it's not like it's some new behaviour here), the nature of The Mandarin, all are interesting plot points which raise issues of psychology and performativity that, if explored further, could've made for a really interesting film. Instead we have this, mindless action and antagonist fire-people who burn and explode from the inside out (seriously?). Now, I don't remember that being part of the Extremis canon.
Going to finish by tying this into my previous post about Star Trek: Into Darkness as these are two new films I've seen in the last couple weeks, both of which I had very different initial reactions too. At the end of Iron Man 3 I was like 'woah that was awesome', but after going away and thinking about it decided that it wasn't actually that good. I definitely found it more engaging than Into Darkness though (see my previous post for reasons...), and at the end of Into Darkness I was the only one out of my group of friends sitting going "Eh... It was okay I guess." But in the end I don't think either of them were particularly awesome, which is a shame. But then what do I know, I just bought Silent Hill: Revelation on DVD. Actually, I think I'm gonna go watch that now. Later alligators.
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