A note of praise to start, because the Iron Man franchise still earns this much: Robert Downey, Jr. is playing himself and that's a very good thing. His Tony Stark remains as endearing as he was the first time around. Iron Man 3 is funny and whimsical and comic book-y, as all the best Marvel films have been (which is to say, most of them). I'm on the record as an abiding fan of Christopher Nolan's Batman, but nobody with their head on straight wants to see that in every superhero movie. There's a bit of gloom to go around, but there's humor, too, and things end well enough for Stark and Gwyneth Paltrow. I can honestly say I didn't see willing, happy retirement in Stark's future. Sure, there will be some threat to bring Stark out of retirement (no Nolan trilogy, this), but for now, we're happy for him.
That last bit is saying something because, from my perspective, it's sometimes too hard to like Tony Stark. The quips as defense mechanisms ring too close to home for me and his ego seems often seems overly flippant for something that manifests as uncharacteristically stupid. Iron Man 2's biggest failing (aside from too much time dedicated to setting up The Avengers) was that Stark had clearly not retained any of the hard-earned lessons of the first film; he was still prone to proving his detractors right, alienating friends, and generally being a dick. We're supposed to like this guy. This time around, those lessons finally seem learned for good. Stark's voluntary retirement is a nod to a thoughtful, considerate, non-sociopathic hero who knows his limits.
IM3 is also our first glimpse of a post-Avengers continuity and while I'm happy to see that all is well, I couldn't help but notice a small hangnail. Stark is experiencing panic attacks following the events of last year's team-up. And that makes sense: he nearly died and his world is now a lot bigger, which means (from Stark's perspective) that he's suddenly a lot smaller. The attacks are there briefly and then conveniently forgotten; vague enough that the filmmakers could ignore the details of a movie they probably hadn't seen by the time IM3 went into production. The attacks are referenced for a chunk of the runtime but never get bogged down in specifics, as though they were late draft callbacks. Meanwhile, IM3 gets to remind the audience that The Avengers happened and that if enough of us see this movie, we might get another (mission accomplished, I suppose). It's all... messy and unsatisfying; hopefully just an awkward step in this ongoing, ambitious project. It's hardly a devastating blow to the shared universe, but it's a fault line Marvel will have to watch for in the future.
I'm very happy to see Guy Pearce getting substantive work. The twist is ballsy (more in a minute), and requires the Aldrich Killian role to step up and fill in for what could be an irritating fake out. As usual, Pearce brought just the right level of smarmy unlikability and menace to a villain position that's been lacking thus far in the series. Despite the formidable talents of Jeff Bridges and Mickey Rourke, Iron Man's villains have remained either underwhelming (Bridges) or tacked on and under-utilized (Rourke). I don't count Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer as a villain, because he was just too damn charming. The chronic weakness in that department was good enough excuse to bring in Iron Man's one iconic villain.
The filmmakers (plus Ben Kingsley) provided a clever and probably necessary new take on the Mandarin. We were never going to get the traditional Fu Manchu-style Mandarin--it's embarrassing enough on the comics page, not to mention the risk of alienating the Chinese market--but it's hard to leave him out of the franchise. So they first make him ethnically ambiguous, and then reveal him as a false face, a flimsy lackey to a character that was effectively a non-entity in the comics. Most of the time, such a shafting of a superhero's number one antagonist would be cause for fan outrage (and it probably is getting some--I don't care enough to look), but the reveal was wisely played and, given the options the Mandarin provides, much more interesting. Though, while "Trevor" was entertaining in his own right, it was a shame to see Kingsley's menace disappear so quickly.
One question: what exactly were the rules for killing the superhuman, regenerating Extremi? Electrocution seemed to do it. Severe enough injury, as well, I guess; Killian was done in by a blow from an Extremis'd Gwyenth Paltrow, after surviving an explosion. Killing Wolverine seems less complicated.
Anyway, I hope Iron Man 4 will have the stones to use MODOK. All I want is for Tony Stark's next existential threat to be a large-headed, tiny-limbed weirdo. Is that asking so much?
Grade: B+
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