Here’s the thing. I don’t dislike Iron Man 3. I was disappointed after that first viewing but not as much now. I still don’t think it’s great. It’s right in that meaty part of the curve. Not showing off. Not lagging behind. I actually think it holds together pretty well until the last act (talk about deja vu!). Since Marvel was unclear if they had RDJ for much longer or perhaps if RDJ himself and the director conspired to close out this sub-series, I don’t know. It’s an issue I’ve had with a few comic adaptations. Nothing can be left open-ended. The idea is that the audience needs to see closure or they won’t like the film. While I do buy into this for some one-off films, comics by their nature are continuous so I think people can handle a superhero not retiring or handing over he mantle to someone else.
The idea to further remove Tony from the suit still kind of irks me. RDJ could play Iron Man forever because it does not require him to be on the set doing stunts like other actors. But we’ve further removed the character by saying he doesn’t need to be in the suit at all. Hell, he doesn’t even need to actively control the suits as a couple dozen can be controlled by JARVIS with little input from Tony. It just waters down the stakes. He’s not putting himself on the line, as he proved he could in The Avengers. He’s content to sit in comfort while other heroes risk their lives. Granted, he was actually in the battles in Age of Ultron but that possibility still bothers me somewhat.
That leads into my continuing questions about JARVIS that have still not been answered. Here he can handle an entire army of battle suits. But in Ultron, we need an alien super AI to protect the earth. I won’t go too far into Ultron here but how is JARVIS so powerful here but not powerful enough in Ultron (until he is)? Why not always call dozens of Iron Man armor into battle? Yes, we get the Iron Legion in Ultron but they do little more than crowd control. Clearly, Tony can build these suits rather quickly as it’s been only a few months(?) since the Battle of New York.
And then we get the coda. Tony blows up all his suits (so he can go back and build them again?) to prove to Pepper he won’t be distracted (until he needs to build them again). He cures himself of the shrapnel which we find out has nothing to do with any new technology but rather just because why not? Kind of negates his arc in Iron Man 2. Also, I felt the arc reactor is what made him singularly capable of being Iron Man. Now he builds them into the suits so anyone, let me repeat, ANYONE, can fly a suit. Savin does so with relative ease. The President is remote controlled into one. I liked the idea that the thing keeping him alive also gave him the unique ability to be this superhero. At the end of this film, it’s almost an afterthought. Why do I have this thing in my chest anyway?
Not to say the film is all bad. It’s just more fun to gripe than praise. I liked the action in this film until the final battle between two disposable armies. Did we learn nothing from the Star Wars prequels? The assault on Tony’s house was pretty epic. I confess to always getting a twinge of sorrow seeing Dummy fall over the cliff. I also loved the Air Force One rescue. It showed Tony’s quick thinking and ingenuity and refusing to accept that he could only save some people, and not all.
Iron Man 3 does a great job of showing us that Tony the man is just as important as being in the suit. A nice juxtaposition to both Iron Man 2 and Cap’s takedown of him in The Avengers. The assault on the Mandarin’s compound had a great DIY feel to it. Even if you wonder why Tony wouldn’t just call SHIELD and say “Yo. Found him!” The same also goes for his sojourn to Tennessee (which gives the film a nice Batman detective feel to the second act) even if the resolution of which is just tapping into their files and watching some video.
Overall I think the film works as diverting entertainment. It’s not too deep. It’s everything we come to expect from an Iron Man film, with great action, amusing character interactions but sadly lackluster villains. Now look, I’m not an avid reader of Iron Man comics. But I do know the Mandarin is supposed to be his arch enemy. And I thought the film did a great job in that portrayal. A man who could strike anywhere at any time. I feel the reveal sucks all the power out of that portrayal for very little payoff. Killian is little more than a monologuing villain. That twist works if the person behind the arch enemy is someone of great intrigue. I never got that from Killian. He just seemed like someone who got miffed Tony stood him up and decided to rule the world. In any case, my issue with the Mandarin reveal has nothing to do with fanboy criticism but with the narrative structure that was laid out. You gave us this great, mysterious villain and then took him away and didn’t replace him with anything noteworthy.
I’m going to give Iron Man 3 a 6/10. It’s worth seeing for the action and character bits. The ending just feels like it limps across the finish line and then they slap-dashed a coda to give the sub-series closure. It’s interesting watching this in the context of Thor: Ragnarok. That film spends a good portion of time of stripping Thor down to his bare essence and doing away with everything that made him Thor in the preceding films. Iron Man 3 does something similar as almost a test case. No mansion, no suits, no arc reactor in chest, almost no Pepper and Happy, to show he’s still Iron Man without all the accessories we’ve seen so far. But the MCU would ever repeat itself so blatantly right? 🤔
Current rankings:
1) Iron Man
2) The Avengers
3) The Incredible Hulk
4) Iron Man 3
5) Captain America: The First Avenger
6) Thor
7) Iron Man 2
