Spoiler Review: Iron Man 3

I hate to sound like a broken record, but Iron Man 3 was a fun movie that managed to annoy me just enough to vent my spleen about it. This is not so much a review as "grumpy old man time."

Major, major spoilers ensue.

Seriously, if you haven't seen the movie, turn back now.

OK, it's on you.

I enjoyed much of Iron Man 3, the first Marvel Universe movie coming off The Avengers, which I loved to pieces. It built from The Avengers nicely, with Tony Stark struggling to make sense of all he experienced in that cosmic battle. So far, so good.

But while IM3 was plenty of fun, and by no means bad, I found myself scratching my head over some of its plot developments and even moreso its marketing.

The marketing first, because it doesn't really reflect on the movie. The trailers for IM3 basically give away massive plot points from the movie's final act, including the attack on Air Force One and the multi-suit deployment. It was clear from the first time Air Force One showed up on screen, much too early, how the mid-air rescue from the trailer was going to go, not to mention the fact that the trailer also showed fairly clearly how Tony was going to pull off the rescue.

Similarly, the deployment of Tony's closet full of Iron Man suits was featured so prominently that when it finally arrived it made that scene exactly the opposite of what it should have been -- an "oh yeah" moment, instead of an "oh wow" moment. I find it hard to believe that a trailer disguising these two key moments in the movie couldn't somehow have been concocted.

On to the movie itself.

In my extremely-similar-to-this review Dark Knight Rises critique, which inexplicably still pulls a lot of traffic, I complained about that film's bait-and-switch regarding Ra's Al Ghul. My objection to that moment pales comparison to what Iron Man 3 does with the Mandarin, one of the Iron Man comic book's most venerable villains, played here by Ben Kingsley.

If you were looking forward to seeing the Mandarin based on the comics, you were well and truly out of luck. Instead of getting Tony Stark's version of Lex Luthor, we got a terrifically menacing and creepy ultraterrorist who halfway through the movie turns out to be a drug-addled actor fronting for Aldrich Killiam, the just-fine-but-no-Ben-Kingsley head of an evil think tank, A.I.M.

Don't get me wrong, Killiam (played by Guy Pearce) was not bad here, but the first half of the movie features a spectacularly awesome villain who just fizzles into nothingness in a particularly undignified manner, starting with a toilet joke and going downhill from there. And you're left with a boring corporate type whose motivation (no joke) stems from the fact Tony Stark was mean to him many years ago (which he frankly deserved).

Despite his not being Ben Kingsley, Killiam does manage to put Tony through the wringer. And Tony makes it much easier for him by spending most of the movie out of his armor, which brings us to the second big buzzkill.

Early in the film, Tony gets walloped by a series of missile strikes fired from helicopters. Somehow this doesn't seem like something that could take Iron Man out, but OK, it does. Crashing in Tennessee, his armor damaged and in need of repair, Tony embarks on what is admittedly very entertaining banter with a young boy and a series of challenges to his life from A.I.M. minions while he seeks out the Mandarin and tries to figure out the big conspiracy.

What is difficult to comprehend here is why.

I mean, I get why from a psychological standpoint. Tony's messed up after the cosmic war in New York, anxiety-stricken and wondering how his tin suits can protect him from gods, aliens and planetary level threats. He needs to learn that the suit is just a suit, and that his brain is the weapon. That's a fine journey for this character.

The problem is that he's facing down a terrorist who has killed dozens or hundreds or something already, who has evaded the entire might of the U.S. government, is threatening an even-more massive attack that could destabilize the whole country, while also menacing his sweetheart, Pepper Potts.

Dude, breathe into a paper bag, put an Iron Man suit and take care of business. You can feel sorry for yourself later.

Although there are some vague allusions to needing time to get his multi-suit army online, it's not adequately clear that he couldn't have invoked this option when he calls Pepper from the phone booth. More to the point, it's extremely hard to imagine that Stark Industries -- or the government -- doesn't have a couple of Iron Man or Iron Patriot suits stashed in locations around the country for just this kind of eventuality. Like just for instance, in Stark Industries' New York office tower, where we saw several during The Avengers. His latest suit is the Mark 42 -- but we only see about a dozen in play. Where are the other 30?

Once A.I.M. discovers Tony is still alive, which happens pretty damn quick, there's no imaginable scenario in which it makes sense for an armorless Tony to storm the Mandarin's stronghold by himself. Even if he's too much of a wreck to suit up himself, why not call the coordinates into Seal Team Six instead of wasting hours on a road trip? We're all glad you found your mojo again, Tony, but did you have to imperil the free world to do it?

If you're willing to turn off (or at least turn down) your brain, Iron Man 3 is still a cool ride with plenty of laughs and great moments. But given that the movie is all about smarts as the ultimate weapon, that's kind of an ironic demand, isn't it?

End grumpy rant.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink