Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3, Action, 2013

Plot: Tony Stark is back in his solo film as he deals with an array of antagonists including the Mandarin, Aldrich Killian, and his own demons from his time with the Avengers in New York.

Thoughts: The third installment in the Iron Man series featured a new director in Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang)  and with it, a new take on a familiar franchise. This was probably the downfall of this film. It seemed that instead of being the Iron Man we knew from the first two films, this Tony Stark was a caricature of himself, pulled from sound bites of the Stark we saw in The Avengers.

Robert Downey Jr. (RDJ) was witty as always, but this version of the Iron Man universe seemed almost unrelated to the various incarnations of Tony Stark from the movies and comic books. This film really struggled to find the balance that I thought Jon Favreau achieved between comedy, drama, and action. At times it felt like I was watching a comedy with action, rather than an action movie with comedy. Nearly half of the movie was one-liners. Iron Man deserves more than that.

The times that were serious seemed to come out of nowhere. The film kept referencing how the “events in New York” affected Tony, yet only once did I feel that he was truly struggling with those memories.

The movie also suffered from its lack of a strong story plot, since most of the movie was about Stark figuring out his place in life. In the main arc, there seemed to be a lack of motivations for the characters; nothing to really drive them to their next step (other than to progress the movie). There were way too many plot twists; some good, some bad, and they will really disappoint you with what they do with one of the characters (don’t worry I won’t spoil it for you).

Kinda disappointed that the Mandarin didn’t have a more prominent role.

There were too many characters in this movie to really get attached to anyone. I’m sure if it wasn’t for all of the flash and pop of the visual effects, this film would not be as good as everyone says it is.

On the flip-side, this movie met (but did not excede) my expectations. I loved RDJ as Tony Stark, and Guy Pierce also does a great job. The action scenes were semi-original, but not boring to say the least.

This is a popcorn movie, but I was hoping for a little more. But it’s a decent book end to the series. My expectations for the new Thor, however, have gone down a bit. Marvel Studios failed to keep the momentum they had from last year’s  Avenger’s, hopefully they can pick it back up with the slew of titles they’re releasing over the next few years.

Good, but not great, movie.

2.9/5

Feel free to let me know your rebuttal ;).

P.S. If you want to see this movie just to see the Iron Man in action, go see another movie and walk in in the last 20 minutes of this film. You won’t miss a thing.
P.P.S. The post-credit short in this movie was LAME.