What about Iron Man 3?

The kid within has questions about Iron Man 3

“Tony Stark makes you feel

He’s a cool exec with a heart of steel!”

Those were the words that kicked off the Iron Man theme song for the first Iron Man cartoon I saw as a kid.  Back then, the best Marvel could muster were low budget cartoons and live action TV shows.  I still love those cartoons!  (You have no comic nerd cred if you don’t get some joy in watching Jack Kirby and Don Heck illustrations even animated in primitive form.)  Those live action TV shows are another matter altogether.  Even as a kid I only tolerated them because I realized the limits of technology and money made it nearly impossible to bring lesser-known comic book creations like Thor and Iron Man to life.  

Fast forward to 2008:  “Iron Man” the feature film ushers in what is now known as Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Thanks to Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. (RDJ), my favorite childhood superhero is no longer a second-tier Marvel character, but recognized the world over as the vanguard of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  For the first time, the world can now really see “live” on the screen what the rest of us Marvel Maniacs have been geeking out over on the printed page.  I’ve been in superhero geek heaven since 2008.  But all things must come to an end.  Phase One ended with a huge $1.5 billion box office bang called “Marvel’s The Avengers.”

IRON MAN 3 and MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE PHASE TWO

The release of “Iron Man 3” officially kicks off Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Phase Two promises to be both smaller and more intimate with solo hero movies like “Iron Man 3”, “Thor: The Dark World”, and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”.  But it also promises to get bigger and more cosmic with “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Avengers 2”.  So how does “Iron Man 3” fare in kicking off Phase Two?  

If I had to sum up “Iron Man 3” in a few words:  Loud, disjointed, hollow and disappointing.

Yes, RDJ remains a charming as hell Tony Stark.  Like all the other films featuring Iron Man, he is a joy to watch on screen.  He brings a loud, braggadacio and swagger to Tony while also projecting a hero who is vulnerable, ingenious and persevering.  His interaction with all the other actors on screen is funny, entertaining and engaging.  RDJ remains a joy to watch as Tony Stark.  But after 5 films as Tony Stark (3 Iron Man movies, 1 Avengers and a cameo in the Incredible Hulk), just watching RDJ on the screen is not enough to make a movie great.  The problem with “Iron Man 3” is how all the other pieces of the movie are disjointed and don’t quite add up to a satisfactory film.

The Movie (left) & Comic Book (right) Mandarin

OK, so I’ll admit there is the Iron Man childhood fan in me that’s completely unsatisfied with what has been done with the Mandarin.  Since they alluded to the Mandarin in the “Ten Rings” organization of the first “Iron Man” movie, I’ve always acknowledged it would be challenging to update the bad, Fu Manchu-style, stereotype of Chinese communist villainy that the comic book Mandarin is.  What was alluded to in the trailers of an archetypical villain who stands on the extreme opposite of everything American seemed like an interesting take I was looking forward to.  A hero is often defined by his enemies.  Most people familiar with the Tony Stark character know that he is actually his own worst enemy.  But external to Tony, without a doubt his greatest arch enemy has always been the Mandarin.  Unfortunately, this movie reveals a Mandarin to be something far less than what was advertised in the trailers.  (SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT) In fact, the movie Mandarin is essentially a make-believe joke or a sham.  Can you imagine if Lex Luthor or the Joker weren’t real, but figments created by some other enemy of Superman or Batman?  Entirely unsatisfying.

What the Mandarin ultimately is revealed as at the end of the film, completely deflates a moment in the first act where an emotionally distraught Tony Stark calls out the Mandarin and declares “it’s just you and me” in a direct charged challenge to the Mandarin.  So what is set up so beautifully in the first act of the movie comes to an entirely unsatisfying resolution between Tony and the Mandarin.

Writer and director, Shane Black has decided not to hang the entire movie on the hero vs. the villain. Then what should he hang the entire movie on?  The obvious choice is Tony Stark’s character arc.  With a superb actor like RDJ whom Shane Black has worked successfully with before in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” pre-Iron Man, it should be a slam dunk.  Only it isn’t.  The movie begins with Tony Stark suffering post-traumatic syndrome after the battle in the Avengers.  I loved this angle and approach.  It beautifully shows serious repercussions and a vulnerable character developed from last summer’s blockbuster “The Avengers”.  Shane then strips away Tony from all of his toys, fortune and friends to setup a situation where we can see Tony deconstructed down to the core of who he is.  So far so good.  But then we get to act 3 where we should have an answer to the question:  Who is Tony Stark?  At the end of this movie he once again declares that he is Iron Man.  OK, we get it.  You've said that many times now.  But who is Shane Black’s Iron Man?

The best I can tell, the movie essentially shows that Tony is the sum of all his loud, disjointed hi-tech parts that he builds.  Only he isn’t.  He’s supposed to be more than those mechanical parts.  (SLIGHT SPOILER WARNING) Which he triumphantly blows up to demonstrate that he is not his armor (or its accessories).  So he sheds his metaphorical cocoon to be reborn as...  what I'm not so sure.  Tony?  Iron Man?  As a decades-long Iron Man fan, I have my ideas about who Tony Stark/Iron Man is.  But this movie really does little to illustrate who Tony Stark and Iron Man is beyond a mechanic who makes neat VFX gadgets while making snide remarks.  

The modern classic Extremis storyline

The VFX and “armor” in “Iron Man 3” are another issue I have.  Iron Man is more like Accessory Man in this movie.  In the story, he is actually physically in the suit for only a few minutes.  When he is Iron Man, it’s really just bits and pieces of accessories that he goes into and out off faster than you could put on or take off your own fashion or hi-tech accessories.  This direction relies heavily on many moving CG (Computer Generated) pieces that have little weight on screen.  One of the best things Jon Favreau established in the first Iron Man movie was the use of more practically built armor pieces.  This gave Iron Man more weight and believability on screen.  Even the comic book Extremis version of the armor had a sense of weight and power that is lost in this movie version comprised of many weightless CG pieces that fly around and get knocked off relatively easily. 

Thus we’re left with CG Accessory Man.

I can continue to knit pick plot points such as Tony suddenly becoming a special ops man able to sneak into a highly fortified compound. Or how a highly experienced military man like James Rhodes is left unattended in that compound so that he can easily escape.  Or how easy it is to pry anyone out of any of the Iron Man suits in this movie (my car is more secure and fortified than the Iron Man suits in this movie), but those are really minor points compared to the overarching problem.  Despite inheriting and setting up a beautiful opening character arc, we end up with a big empty shell of a character and movie.  Kind of appropriate considering that one of the comic book Iron Man's nick names is “shell head”.

To be fair, “Iron Man 3” is a decent mindless, blockbuster, summer movie distraction.  The friends I saw this movie with were spread pretty evenly across the spectrum in their reactions ranging from those who really liked it, those who thought it was ok and those who felt it was disappointing.  If it’s not obvious by my review so far, you can count me squarely in the latter disappointed group.

“Iron Man 3” had so much potential inherited from “The Avengers”, previous Iron Man movies and comic books.  While the average summer moviegoer can probably find this movie entertaining, this movie squanders most of that potential and leaves the kid inside of me screaming “what about me?”  What about those of us who have known and loved this character for decades?  Disney and Marvel couldn’t give us the real comic book version of Iron Man and the Mandarin.  So we’re stuck with a hollow shell of a movie that feels more like those low budget Marvel TV shows with watered down versions of these beloved characters. Perhaps what the “Mandarin” says in the movie about fortune cookies sums up Iron Man 3:  It is a hollow knock-off filled with lies.