The Marvelous Marvel Rewatch (Now Playing: Avengers: Infinity War)

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Iron Man 3

Just watched Iron Man 3.  Here are my thoughts with lots of spoilers.  (Don't read if you haven't seen this movie.)


Pluses:

Loved seeing Tony in the middle of the movie without the armor.  He shows that he is still extremely resourceful, and I feel that Iron Man is in real danger without the armor.  Also liked seeing him suffer PTSD from the Avengers movie attack on New York.  It makes him seem extra vulnerable.

Also, loved seeing Tony with the kid.  He is kind of a dick to the kid, but they end up bonding anyway.  It's believable while breaking the tradition of "hero whose heart goes out to the kid whose father left him".

The Air Force One "Barrel of Monkeys" scene is great. 

Several other great action scenes like Tony fighting the "fire" people in Tennessee, and also Tony infiltrating the Miami base with gadgets he built from hardware store supplies.

Post credits scene is hilarious.

Minuses:

I felt the "twist" involving the Mandarin was a huge middle finger to the people watching.  I don't even know that much about the comic book character other than he is one of Iron Man's main villains.  I am still really pissed about it though.  I mean, from a plot point of view the Ben Kingsley character could have been named anything.  They name him Mandarin to punk the people watching.  Also, Iron Man is a great character, but he never gets a really good super villain.  I was hoping for some epic final showdown with the Mandarin.  Instead we get punked by the film makers.

I really, really loathe the ending to this movie.  He spends the entire movie without the armor.  Then at the very end he calls in a huge army of suits with advanced programming so that they can fight on their own.  That broke my suspension of disbelief.  I mean why did he do all of that stuff without armor if he can call in a robot army at any time?  Jarvis was not even down for the whole movie.  And even with Jarvis down, I have a hard time believing he couldn't have gotten one of these suits earlier considering they all have advanced programming.

He never really becomes Iron Man.  Tony never had just one scene where is simply in one fully functional suit piloting the armor.  I liked that he had to be without armor in the middle, but I didn't want that for the entire movie.  A good story would have been Tony being forced to be resourceful, so that he is even more awesome as Iron Man.  Instead it shows him being resourceful, so that he doesn't have to be Iron Man anymore?  WTF?

This movie does so much to wrap up the trilogy at the end, that they don't give a good conclusion to the movie itself.  Everything about this ending says, "Tony is not Iron Man anymore!"  They blow up all of the armor, and take the shrapnel out of his chest, and he moves somewhere else.  It's like Iron Man was just a phase that he outgrew.  When you consider that he is still appearing as Iron Man all over the place in the MCU, this makes Iron Man 3's ending totally pointless.  Hey director!  Instead of wrapping up the trilogy, you could have just given us a satisfying ending to Iron Man 3!  What I really wanted in one of these movies was a good final showdown with Tony Stark in one, non-disposable Iron Man suit, against an interesting and threatening villain.  Now that the trilogy is over, it is sad that we are never going to get this.  Really the Avengers ending is really more like an ending we would have liked to see in an Iron Man movie, considering Iron Man is the one that sends the nuke to the Chitauri fleet.


In conclusion, most of Iron Man 3 is an extremely fun and enjoyable movie that builds up to a frustrating, disappointing and infuriating final act.

6/10

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 07 February 2018