Third Time's a Charm

Before I saw Iron Man 3 last night, I'd heard just about every possible review of it, from every sort of predisposition toward the movie: I was excited to go and hated it; I was indifferent and loved it; I was excited to go and it was everything I'd hoped for; and everything in between. The point being, this seems like a highly subjective movie, and you should probably trust your own judgment on whether or not you want to see it.

That said, my opinion is that it is the best of the three Iron Man films.

For me, what made the big difference this time around was the presence of writer-director Shane Black. He and Robert Downey Jr. have a history together, working on the brilliant and funny Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Every frame of this movie seemed infused with the joy of two people thrilled to be working together again, because this movie was just plain more fun than the first two.

The humor was a bit more sharp in this movie, and the character of Tony Stark was thrown into a wider variety of two-character pairings here than ever before. Particularly satisfying is the middle stretch of the movie, where he's paired up with a young boy who gives as good as he gets from the snarky Stark -- but there are great moments of repartee between Downey and established characters played by Gwyneth Paltrow and Jon Favreau too.

Also satisfying for me was that Tony Stark spends a good chunk of this movie without his suit. Several key sequences pit our hero against the bad guys with nothing but his own ingenuity, and Stark comes out more heroic in my view for besting them without "super powers."

The villain of the piece, the Mandarin (played by Ben Kingsley) was also a wonderful addition to the movie. It's extremely difficult to articulate what Kingsley brings to the film without giving away some key developments in the plot, but suffice it to say he gives one of the best performances in the movie, and dominates every scene in which he appears -- though Guy Pearce and James Badge Dale also make very effective and memorable appearances in the movie.

All that said, I can totally see why a devoted comic fan might well hate this movie for exactly the reasons I detailed above. To reiterate -- Tony Stark spends most of this movie out of his Iron Man suit and not beating the crap out of people. And as for the Mandarin... well, his presentation here is a major reinvention of his depiction in the original comics. In short, if you're a devoted comic fan who expects to see Iron Man fight the Mandarin, you are likely to be disappointed.

Another flaw in the movie is that, while the characterization and the wit are sharp, the logic of the plot is a bit flimsy. The invulnerability of the villain seems to fluctuate a great deal from moment to moment. Stark's loss of his suit, later followed by a climax (spoiled by the trailers, if you've seen them) in which he has access to multiple suits, is a series of poorly explained contrivances for narrative purposes. And a particular moment in the plot... well, I won't get too specific, but skip the rest of this paragraph if you feel you must... feels directly cribbed from Batman Begins. (At least it gets played here for different effect.)

All told, I give Iron Man 3 a B. And as a footnote, though it should go without saying after all these other Marvel films, stick around for the scene after the end credits. This one is totally worth it.