Visually Entertaining & Action Packed
A Final Boss Battle Worth Celebrating
So one of the things that disappointed me about the previous Ironman movie was its final hero-villain confrontation. We had all of this build up surrounding Whiplash as a legitimate physical threat to challenge Tony Stark's tech and yet...the battle lasts for what felt like mere seconds. When thinking about these big superhero blockbusters, the fan expectation, considering the track record of the genre as a whole, is that we'd get that final huge climactic battle with the big villain that brings about every obstacle and revelation encountered prior into the forefront to see how the hero has progressed.
Maybe this is a new item that the hero has or a new bit of wisdom from the story leading up to the fight that allows him to better face the big scary enemy that can potentially eliminate them. And traditionally, it's usually a pretty extensive high stakes feeling battle. This is where Ironman 2 failed and Ironman 3 significantly improves on. Throughout the story, we see Tony struggling with a past event and current obstacles while also gradually progressing through his own journey of identity and trauma. The movie then decides to take the big lessons that he learns about who he is in and outside of the Ironman suit and utilizes it in a visually spectacular display of power in the final fight scene.
In this, I finally got what I've been asking for in a solo Ironman film. A fight scene that not only feels extensive in time allowing us as the viewers to fully soak in the dazzling FX work extravaganza that a mechanical suit wearing hero would offer, but also showing Tony enduring a lot of death defying close calls while utilizing all of his resources to a high extent. Everything about that fight was great both conceptually and visually (the idea of Tony transitioning from one suit to the next fending off against a super powered individual).
Great Character Moments
Much like the action scenes being great, there's no surprise in me stating that Robert Downey Jr. completely knocks it out of the park with his performances here. And for the most part, just about everyone else in the cast does a pretty solid job in their respective roles (nice to see Rhodey being given more spotlight in the MCU as Tony's friend and now Iron Patriot). The real highlight here comes in some of the writing and direction with particular character moments. There's a great dramatic component introduced in this particular Ironman movie that I personally think is one of the most compelling storytelling elements ever explored in the MCU (or any comic book movie for that matter).
Throughout the movie, you're witnessing what can essentially be called a relational rift happening between Tony Stark and Pepper Pots primarily due to his obsessive tinkering with the Ironman suits. However, this isn't just some typical "the hero works hard to get better and therefore loses his human relationships" trope as seen in other properties. The core of this rift is found in Tony's traumatic struggles following the events of The Avengers movie.
He's literally in constant paranoia and fear after witnessing an alien armada and falling through a portal that could've killed him resulting in him expressing that fear through an unhealthy time spent working on his tech. This is the story of a superhero who prides himself of having a powerful suit of armor that has to now deal with the fragility of his existence...and he doesn't know how to do that beyond working harder. I absolutely love this narrative and the manner in which the movie tackles it through various scenes of him either having an emotional break down from a mental trigger or visual storytelling cues such as his suits becoming a problem in his relationships or cries for help. What's also unique and fascinating to note here is that Ironman 3 takes what was just perceived by the audience as a fun entertaining celebration worthy action scene in the Avengers and turns it into a layered darker story centering on the anxiety of impending doom and PTSD.
If that wasn't enough, the story then both figuratively and literally strips Ironman down into just Tony having to do quite a bit of super heroics without all of the bells and whistles that he's used to. This results in the character embarking on a journey of self discovery and identity proving that the persona of Ironman isn't the suit but the man behind the creation and craft of said suit. I think for that alone, in addition to Robert Downey Jr.'s excellent performance during these all of these scenes, this sequel should be applauded.
The Twist That Almost Broke The Film
Ah yes, here it is. The big surprise coming out of Ironman 3 and the one thing that certainly had countless of fans both debating and complaining over. I'm speaking of course about the promised villain from the trailers, "The Mandarin", being arguably destroyed as a character in this movie. For years, I've always tried to step into comic book movies with the expectation that characters will be different in some fashion from their previous source material counterparts. Whether it's a few changes of costume aesthetics or perceived traditional personality traits, this will always be an inescapable part of the adaptation process that, as fans, we have to accept and be open minded about.
That being said, what they do with the Mandarin villain from the comics here is a massive stretch and a huge ask for the fans to be flexible with. They took Ironman's biggest villain (The joker to Batman or Lex Luthor to Superman) and turned him into a clueless, cowardly, delusional, junky, British actor name Trevor who was merely playing a role. Or should I say more accurately, they took the Mandarin as we were promised in the trailers and movie's earlier scenes and reveals him to essentially be a goofball decoy.
Now, before it sounds as though I completely hated this reveal, I must admit that I do find the twist to be extremely bold, and if you're familiar with my sensibilities as a moviegoer, you'd know that I always admire bold moves being made in cinema. That being said, just because something would make for an ambitious direction, it doesn't necessary mean that it would make for the ideal direction to veer towards. Honestly, once the movie was over, I immediately started to think of much better ways that they could have approached both the character and the overarching story.
I felt this subversion of expectation wasn't a necessary one worth sacrificing the potential from the source material or even what a new unique adaptation could've been. The "true Mandarin" in the movie ends up being the villain, Aldridge Killian, as he proclaims to have been using Trevor's acting profession to portray the scary terrorist image on the news while he himself works in the shadows. It's actually a pretty clever idea and plays on our real world history of famous terrorists and popularized conspiracy theories surrounding the U.S. government, but the execution itself in the movie just falls flat on its face by the end of it all.
Even if they didn't want to use the 10 rings of different powers route from the comics revolving around the Mandarin's character abilities, the trailer gave us something worth being excited for which was a grounded scary villain and a phenomenal actor (Ben Kingsley) who could perhaps elevate the standards for the MCU's rogues gallery. And with that hook going in, they never delivered on that. One of the worst things that you can do in storytelling is understand what the audience is excited for, tease it in front of them, pull the rug under them to fool them, and then replace their desires with something of glaringly lesser value. In a nutshell, this is what the writers did with the Killian character considering how one dimensional, forgettable, and uninteresting the character was.
Rating: 9/10
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