Review: Iron Man 3 Is Wasted Potential: The Movie
- Feb 3, 2018
- 2 min read
Iron Man 3 sees Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) after Avengers, dealing with PTSD after almost dying in space while trying to perfect the Iron Man suits. It's a fascinating angle, with a lot going on. Some of it worked.
When a terrorist known as the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) starts stealing American airwaves to threaten the public, and Tony's friend and ex-bodyguard Happy (Jon Favreau) is caught in a mysterious explosion, Tony tells his home address to a TV reporter out of anger. Soon, his mansion is blown up, and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is thrown out of harm's way along with a woman from Tony's past (Rebecca Hall) with a mysterious warning. But Tony becomes stranded in Tennessee, with no suit and a mystery to solve.
Like many Shane Black films, the plot is supposed to be intricate, and always makes some sense, but ends up confusing more than explaining. The villain, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) is set up at the start of the film with a revenge plot - Tony left him waiting for ages on a rooftop at the turn of the milennium, and he says at one point that it changed him. But then everything he says and does towards the end suggests that he wants to control the war on terror and "create supply and demand", which is either a very strange plan, or a very generic "control the world" villain plot.
The portrayal of the Mandarin is very controversial, but since I wasn't familiar with the character before the movie, I actually like the direction that the character was taken in. I also like the ending, and don't agree with the popular opinion that it conflicts with future movies.
Iron Man 3 is a Shane Black movie - needlessly confusing, with a really long mystery plot, but a lot of funny moments and some pretty decent action. I honestly hate everything about the villain and his motivations, but the first half of the movie - and everything it entails - is great.
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