Iron Man 3

As a Spider-Man enthusiast I have never been on the same page as those who consider Iron Man to be Marvel’s lead character. Even Captain America has a better claim. But as we see with each of Robert Downey Jr.’s four turns as Tony Stark, the character’s stature is in large part due to the actor’s success with him. Iron Man 3 sees Stark pitted against a super-terrorist called the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) who is causing chaos at every turn. But even with the most intriguing villain of the three films there are a number of changes that work against the movie.

The most important change was John Favreau exiting the director’s chair after leading the first two in the franchise. For this third one, Shane Black took over and the result is over the top. Plot holes run rampant. For example, Stark almost gets killed by a villain. He narrowly escapes only to be met by another villain. Stark takes him out at the last second with a hidden weapon. So why wouldn’t he use that weapon with the first one who almost killed him? (Slight spoiler coming if you haven’t seen the commercials.) Also, why didn’t Stark unleash his army of Iron Men when terrorists were blowing up his house and coming so close to killing him and Pepper. These are comic book nerd questions, but I want answers!

This is the first chapter in Marvel’s phase two that began after last summer’s The Avengers. Well apparently the events from that film impacted Stark because the script brings it up over and over. It’s a bit annoying to be honest. If you’re not going to give us any SHIELD cross-over moments, don’t throw things like that in our faces.

I do admit that Downey Jr. is the main reason for these films being successful, but it looks like he may need a bit of a break from Jarvis and the iron suits. He lacked the edge he had in The Avengers and the other Iron Man films. Kingsley gives a great performance, especially in the film’s first half. Comic book fans will be disappointed with the Mandarin, non-fans will love him.

Frankly Iron Man 3 is an example of Marvel collapsing on itself. They try to go too big in the film and the result is a final battle with an army of disposable Iron Man suits fighting an army of Extremis zombies, who for some reason don’t act like humans. A big fight is cool, but when you don’t care about the fighters on either side, it’s a bit pointless. IM3 is just a weird movie. It’s a fun movie, but weird.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.