by Joseph Rossi
To be honest, I never cared about Iron Man. Comics and movies — never cared. I thought the first movie was an okay attempt to please comic book and action junkies. It brought back to life the career of Robert Downey Jr. and gave him a perfect excuse to use his usual rat-a-tat delivery to kick-start the whole Marvel superhero rebirth. I loathed Iron Man 2 from start to finish. What was supposed to be fun became an excruciating exercise in trying to understand Mickey Rourke’s Russian accent.
But much to my shock and surprise, I enjoyed the hell out of Iron Man 3. Why? One reason? Co-writer and director Shane Black. Once the wunderkid of the modern action film; he wrote the great Lethal Weapon, the guilty pleasure The Last Boy Scout, and the overlooked Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Here he brings to the plate what the franchise sorely needed. Odds.
My major problem with the series was that Downey Jr. didn’t seem to care about what was going on. Much like his Sherlock Holmes (same character, different era), his rapid-fire delivery makes him come across as slightly nihilistic. This time around the odds are fairly staked; the stakes are high as now Mr. Stark has plenty to lose — his powers and the love of his life, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow in her best IM outing yet).
After the events of last summer’s The Avengers, Stark is paranoid and restless. This newfound humanness is a breath of fresh air. Black and his cowriter Drew Pearce understand that this is what needed to happen for the series to continue. Stark is no more the technological God he seemed to be. Now he is fallible.
The villains of the piece are the crown jewels of this film. Guy Pearce plays Aldrich Killian, a once nerdy and handicapped lab rat turned suave megalomaniac who has to get back at Tony Stark for slighting him in the past. His plan to create an evil army out of disabled veterans is slightly James Bondish but hey, it’s a Marvel film. Then there is Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin. Marvel writers listen up; this is how you write a villain. Sure it’s a complete 180 from the actual comic book creation but this is a movie folks — live with it. Kingsley brings it in full force in this cross between the Unabomber and Bin Laden and the results are mind-bendingly memorable.
As good as the writing is, the movie delivers on the promised spectacle. Black stages the destruction of Stark’s seaside home with such gravitas that the awe is earned; hard thing to do, especially for a novice action director. The finale is a sight to be seen, on a massive screen if possible, to catch all the fine details. Won’t spoil it. Just saying it’s better then anything in the first two films.
When they make Iron Man 4 I hope Mr. Black returns. I hope Hollywood gives him another shot at spectacle movie making because it fits him like a glove. Or like a suit of tight fitting iron amour.
