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| Release: 2013, Rating: Pg-13, Runtime: 130 min. |
It only feels like yesterday that we had an Iron Man movie, wait I guess that was The Avengers. Anyway, Iron Man 3 fixed most of the issues of the last movie (Iron Man 2) and gave us an interesting, but muddled story, with a few neat surprises. The only thing missing from the movie, is Iron Man…
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: When Tony Stark’s world is torn apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, he starts an odyssey of rebuilding and retribution.
Iron Man 3 picks up the story after the end of The Avengers and Tony Stark is having a hard time recouping from the near death experience and face to face encounter with the aliens. He can’t sleep and he’s focusing all his time into building more suits. Meanwhile, terrorist attacks are being carried out by someone who refers to himself as The Mandarin. Tony does want to help out and take him down, but Col. James Rhodes has taken over the mantle as savior, donning the War Machine suit, now named Iron Patriot. Unfortunately, due to some tragic events, Tony finds himself in the mix and vows to take down The Mandarin and in the process, puts the woman he loves the most, Pepper Potts, in the line of fire.
I really enjoyed Iron Man 3, it beats the hell out of Iron Man 2, giving you some cool, but underused villains and a good sampling of humor from Robert Downey Jr. Everyone puts in a good performance (hurts me to say that, as I can’t stand Gwyneth Paltrow), with Guy Pearce doing a nice, yet hammy job as the geeky at first and then dashing douche bag later, Aldrich Killian. I have to say the most enjoyable performance was from Ben Kingsley, as The Mandarin, who, along with a lot of other people besides Tony Stark, is criminally underused in the movie. I don’t read the comics and am not aware of the back story, so what they did to this character in the movie didn’t bother me at all and I did enjoy it for the most part, but I will admit I was a little disappointed.
This is definitely a Tony Stark movie and Iron Man comes second. There are long stretches of time where you will not see the suit. This can be a big problem for people that love Iron Man. I was a little disappointed in the lack of suit action, but the story for the most part worked well; there are a few plot holes and things yet unexplained at the end, but for the action junkies, there is plenty of the bang/boom near the end, with a lot of suit action and when I say a lot, trust me, I mean it!
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| Speaking of boom, the lovely Rebecca Hall from The Awakening, is in the movie. |
Iron Man 3 is a return to form for the series and director Shane Black (Predator) does a great job taking over from Jon Favreau, who has a small returning role in the film. I only have small complaints, like the aforementioned lack of Iron Man and the underused role of The Mandarin. Also, there were times were the CGI was a bit dodgy, but that was a rare occurrence. Any Iron Man fans who felt let down by the last movie (not The Avengers, but Iron Man 2), will be happy to see the series back on track and after the end credits roll by (remember to stay after the credits for a quick, funny scene), I think you will be excited to see the story continue on and see Tony Stark return.
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