C&C Retrospective - Iron Man 3 - Lead-up to Age of Ultron!

C&C Retrospective - Iron Man 3 

The First in our Phase 2 lead-up to Age of Ultron!

By Dan Uppington 

 

“It's the end. The end of the path I started us on.” 

Tony, Tony, Tony. You had to play Gepetto didn't you?

Well if he didn't, then we wouldn't be bestowed with Avengers: Age of Ultron at the end of this month. A film that, from watching the trailers (the first of which I played on repeat roughly 20 times over), could easily outshine the tremendous triumph and prosperity of Marvel’s Avengers in 2012 (some Assembly of UK name rights required). So in the spirit of the imminent sentient apocalypse Ultron and his Ul-drones (patent pending) have prepared to leave the world screaming, I am revisiting the blockbusters of Marvel Phase 2 every Wednesday leading up to Age of Ultron to keep our beaks plenty damp. We’ll be looking at Thor 2: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Not a weak entry in the bunch and have all brought their best to the ring. We will start with the true heavyweight superhero. Literally. He wears a suit made of metal. We begin with Iron Man 3. 

Another Iron Man film, another awesome battle suit!

Directed by Shane Black and produced by the likes of Kevin Feige (in Feige and Whedon we trust!) and Jon Favreau, Iron Mans third solo outing sees Tony Stark dealing with his apparent shell-shock and demons once again following his experience of saving the world with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.Tony Stark is left to pick up where the Avengers left off after Loki’s Chitauri invasion of New York. At least you'd think so, but this story is really the hot mess Tony has become following said event, where he is experiencing anxiety attacks and seemingly suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder whenever a certain “wormhole” is mentioned. His work, his suits and his relationship with Pepper Potts are all suffering from his internal stresses, and it shows. 

Chilling. Marvel style.

Unlike the name on the door however, Stark Industries (headed now by Pepper) is prosperous and progressing. Happy Hogan is back as head of security and happily flexing his firm but fair rule on name badges. Pepper’s world is seemingly shaken by a revealing meeting with Aldrich Killian of AIM, of whom he and Tony shared a brief encounter one fateful New Years Eve. Through his presentation of “Extremist” The literal meeting of minds gives Pepper the chills (not the kind you think) and a lasting impression is left on Happy by one of Killian’s affiliated associates. 

The popular Extremis storyline was taken straight from the comics

Meanwhile, a terrorist organisation named The Ten Rings and it's farc – ahem – faraway figurehead The Mandarin are plaguing the world with death, confusion and fear through their terrorist activities in order to teach America a “lesson”, and for the President, graduation day is coming. On a chance encounter and in the true spirit of being in the right place at the wrong time, Happy is gravely injured in one of The Mandarin’s bombings.
Through this, Iron Man and The Mandarin are bound together and neither will rest until the other’s world is torn apart. But in a world of false faces and iron suits, will obscurity triumph over revenge and retribution? 

Tony Stark spends a lot of time getting owned in this flick

Beginning Phase 2 with Iron Man is the smartest move Marvel could have made. As a character, Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark is so popular that they didn't even put him in an Iron Man suit for about 75% of the film. Which in itself bothers me a little. An Iron Man film which is 2 hours and 10 minutes and Tony spends maybe 30 minutes tops battling in one? Thank Odin that RDJ is as excellent actor as he is, and able to convey a new side of Tony that goes beyond his savvy, smarts and sauce in his anxiety attacks. 

Stark gets plenty of time to shine outside the Armour

 Also a palm-reddening round of applause to Ben Kingsley. Marvel made an executive decision to commit fan-boy adultery and there was Sir Kingsley cracking open a cold beer and handling panic like a boss. I'm no comic book buff, Alex and Steve will contest to that, so I absolutely loved the Mandarin face turn so to speak because it was funny as hell! But along with a couple of other moments in the film, the execution and delivery was that of a cop out. It goes to show that the studio is not only prepared to, but more than happy to pull the trigger on these deviations from the source materiel because maybe half the audience hasn't grown up reading comics. (Though if you watch the short "All Hail The King” you may find some solace). 

Ben Kingsley's role in the film divided fans

The moral of this story, as Tony puts it is that “we create our own demons”. Be very careful of the bridges you burn, if you blow them up make sure you're not in the blast radius basically. Tony obviously hasn't done this, because cut-straight-from-the-cookie-dough villains like Aldrich Killian are here to prove you can't be blissfully ignorant all your life, no matter how much you believe the sun shines out of your arc reactor. As a side note; Guy Pierce’s impression of Lou from Little Britain is spot on at the start of the film. 

The "real" Mandarin proved too much for Iron Man to handle

The more laughs that this film creates, the less of a super hero film it became. As per the tone of Avengers, the trend continues but I can't help but feel this is the least serious entry we've had. Marvel needed a vehicle for RDJ to be Tony Stark, he got his platform but the story and other characters suffered. The first half of the film is strengthened through the building of the Ten Rings and Mandarin’s lessons. More Flawless work from Kingsley there. But as the story all unravels, so did my attention and the last half was really saved by the action packed set pieces.

Although seemingly cured, will Pepper's powers resurface in the future?

I'm going to give Iron Man 3 a 7/10. I was more than happy with this film as a comedy, and was certainly better than I thought. It was far better than Iron Man 2 at least. Join me next time for my review of Thor 2: the Dark World. Thanks for reading and remember, for everything Superhero keep it locked here at Cape and Cowl, Dan out!