Iron Man 3 (2013)

nTitle: Iron Man 3 (2013)

nDirector: Shane Black

nCast: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, GuynPearce, Jon Favreau, William Sadler, Miguel Ferrer

nReview:

nIron Man 3 is exactly what it’s supposed to be when you takenin consideration that it’s directed by Shane Black. But who the hell is ShanenBlack you might ask? Well, most movie buffs will know that he’s the mastermindnbehind the scripts for such classics as Lethal Weapon (1987), The Last Boyscoutn(1991), The Monster Squad (1987), Last Action Hero (1996) and The Long KissnGoodnight (1996). Mind you, I said he’s the mastermind behind the scripts for thesenmovies, not the direction, because that’s what Shane Black’s been doing for anlarge part of his career, writing awesome movies. By the way, during the 90’s, Mr.nBlack became Hollywood’s highest paid screenwriter! For The Last Boy Scout hengot paid a cool 1.75 million dollars, the highest any screenwriter had gottennpaid at the time. Then for The Long Kiss Good Night he got paid four freakingnmillion dollars! And it was a box office failure! After that huge failure, ShanenBlack retracted from writing anything. Reportedly he wanted to get away fromnassociating himself with big budget movies. He then resurfaced into the limelight bynwriting and directing the fast paced action comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)nwhich starred Robert Downey Jr, so it makes all the sense in the world seeingnthem working together again for this third Iron Man film. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wasnShane Black’s first directing gig, and it was a successful one. Now he saysnthat directing is what really gets his panties up in a bunch, he loves it. So,nhere comes Iron Man 3, his second shot at directing a film, and his biggestnproject to date, how did it go?
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nIron Man 3 picks up right where The Avengers (2012) leftnoff, with Tony Stark dealing with the whole aftermath of saving New York fromnan alien invasion and traveling through wormholes and all that. Apparently, Mr.nStark cannot deal with the fact that he saved millions of lives and possiblynthe entire planet from an alien invasion. Wormholes, demi-gods and aliens givenStark sporadic anxiety attacks. The mere mention of anything related to ThenAvengers or wormholes will get him all panicky. At the same time, there’s a newnvillain on the horizon. One that wants to destroy America! Will Iron Man be psychologicallynstable enough to battle his own demons and stop The Mandarin and his minions atnthe same time?

nStaying true to the kind of characters that Shane Black likesnto write, this time around Stark is an unstable protagonist. If you’ve seennsome of Blacks previous films, you’ll find that many of his stories havenprotagonists who are unstable psychologically, angry and on the edge. I mean,nthe best example I guess would be the first film he ever wrote; Lethal Weapon. Onnthat one we meet Martin Riggs, a guy who’s a borderline psycho. A guy who isndepressed because he lost his wife. Without her, his life is meaningless, hendoesn’t care if he gets shot, or dies, or what. In fact, the guy is downrightnsuicidal! Another example would be the main character in The Last Boy Scout; anprivate detective called Joe. His daughter hates him and his wife is beingnunfaithful to him with his best friend! It is sufficient to say he hates his lifenas well. Bruce Willis goes throughout the whole movie looking all pissed off. And so when I see Tony Stark having nightmaresnand getting anxiety attacks, it makes all the sense in the world because ShanenBlack loves writing characters that are troubled and confounded that way. Hisncharacters are always dealing with some terrible issue in their lives that doesn’tnallow them to be happy. This is the kind of Tony Stark you’ll be seeing in IronnMan 3. How blue is Tony Stark in this movie? Well, to give you an idea, thenfilm starts out with the one hit wonder by Eifel 65 called “Blue (Da-Ba-Dee)”;nthat’s how blue!

nThis doesn’t mean that Iron Man 3 is all gloom and doom,nbecause let’s face it, this is Disney, and they are not about selling gloom andndoom. So what we have here is a light version of a dark and gloomy guy, I knownthat sounds like a contradiction, but it isn’t. This new Iron Man is a classicnShane Black troubled protagonist, but he’s just not about to blow his brain out.nTony Stark, though unhinged and delicate psychologically, still retains hisnwits and good humor about him, as if trying to hide all these bad things goingnon in his head. One of the elements I enjoyed the most about this Iron Man isnhow it strips the character down completely. The film starts out by having TonynStark saying in a voice over, “you know who I am” this immediately lets us knownwhat the main theme of the film will be. The dissection of what makes Iron Man;nIron Man. Is it his suit? Is it Tony Stark? Or is it a combination of both?nThere are many visual indications that what the film is trying to tell us isnthat it’s the man that makes the suit, and not the other way around. There’snthis idea behind the film that without Tony Stark, these suits would just benclunky, clumsy things. There is an interesting duality to this character: thensuit represents technology and Tony Stark represents humanity and there’s thisnclash between the two. They are trying to co-exist with each other, but it’snnot a perfect match. Well, at least not in this film. So this is why duringnthis film you will see Tony Stark relying less and less on his suit and morenand more on his cunning. This is probably the reason why throughout the wholenfilm, Tony is jumping in and out of the suit.

nBlack established a motif, a recurrent thematic element innthe film and it’s Stark, the human vs. the Iron Man armor. Though the suits arenhelpful in many ways, on this film they are also shown to be imperfect,nfailing, unreliable, a hindrance to Stark; some of the funniest moments comenfrom this. Shane Black decided to portray the suit like something similar to ansmart phone, you have to charge it if you want to use it, and sometimes whennyou need it the most, it’s not charged! Or the battery dies. So be ready to seenone of these movies that turns its main character around. It turns its oncenindestructible protagonist into someone vulnerable, confused and disrupt. Theynused the same formula that was used for Skyfall (2012), in that film thenfilmmakers took James Bond and made him a vulnerable mess. In Iron Man 3 they took the character, who is usuallynindestructible and stripped him of all his gadgets and powers and left him withnthe bare essentials, no additives, no preservatives, just pure unadulteratednTony Stark. This might prove to be a bit shocking to those who expect to getntheir usual indestructible version of Iron Man. In fact, you’ll see more ofnTony Stark then you will of Iron Man himself. Sometimes Stark will only usenparts of the suit instead of the entire suit. Or sometimes he’ll be working thensuit from afar, from remote control. Point is, Mr. Black purposely drew a separating line between Tony Stark and his armor.

nBut is the movie any fun? I say hell yea it is. Shane Blacknmight want to show us a darker, more disrupt version of Tony Stark, but henstill has to deliver the goods on the action and “wowzers!” department. So does Iron Man 3 deliver on thenaction? I say the film delivers a fine balancing act between being characterndriven, and exploring Stark on a deeper level while also delivering the shownstopping action. Case in point: the scene where they blow up Starks mansion isna real grabber. So is the one that takes place in and out of Air Force One, then there’s the climactic scene that takes place on an oil rig. Wenget The Mandarin as the films major villain, and though he might not be whatncomic book fans might expect, I thought he was still cool. I would have namednhim something else other than The Mandarin, because he isn’t The Mandarin fromnthe comics. Its obvious Black was playing with our expectations of thencharacter. I don’t know why he chose to deviate so radically from what thencharacter is supposed to be, but for some reason he avoided The Mandarin’snoriental origins and completely eschewed the ten alien power rings that he’snsupposed to wear on each finger. Theyndidn’t even include his superhuman martial arts abilities, though he does fightngood. The only thing that’s left from the comic book version of the characternis that he can slice Iron Man’s suit with his bare hands; so everything in thisnmovie is pretty much in order, save for the way they decided to portray The Mandarin. But hell, if you don’t follow the comics, never mind. Then he’s just a cool super villain.

nIn my opinion, Iron Man 3 is the best written of the threenfilms. It does a good balancing act between exploring what constitutes Iron Man and heavy doses of awesomenaction. There’s a couple of new additions as well, for example, they went thenway of RoboCop 3 (1993) and added a homeless kid into the story. The kid becomesnIron Man’s sidekick for a spell; which I thought was a good idea; it gives all the twelve year olds out there a character tonidentify with, and at the same time, it gave Tony Stark the chance of becomingna father figure. There’s more interesting developments and surprises, but I don’t want to spoil them for you. Just make surenyou stick till after the credits for a little extra scene/joke that was prettynfunny. The film might disappoint some hardcore Mandarin fans, maybe the filmnwill disappoint those who want to see Tony Stark inside of the armor for 95% ofnthe film, but for those who want to get to know what makes Iron Man tick, fornthose who get more of a kick from watching Robert Downey Jr. doing his thing,nwell, then you’re gonna love this Iron Man flick.

nRating: 4 ½ out of 5