"Iron Man 3": The Fall of a Hero...and Everything Else

So Marvel's The Avengers was released exactly a year ago and thus we are now in Phase II of the Marvel Cinematic Universe beginning with the kick off summer blockbuster, Iron Man 3. There was the first  Iron Man, a miracle hit, Iron Man 2, which gained mixed reaction, but I personally enjoy it, and now we have Iron Man 3, which follows the suited hero Iron Man aka Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) after the events of The Avengers. Stark is at a low point in his life as he suffers post-traumatic anxiety and panic attacks due to the battle in New York City he was involved in during The Avengers, and also because of the fact that his eyes were opened to new kinds of enemies such as aliens and gods that can destroy the world at any moment. Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Palthrow) returns this time around as Stark's now girlfriend and domestic partner, who now Tony claims he loves so much and cannot see his life living without her. But a new threat comes about as a new villain, The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), causes terrorist attacks throughout the world, while also calling out The United States as well as the President. After Tony's friend, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) is in critical condition after one of the Mandarin's attacks, he calls an all out war against the Mandarin, which in turn causes the Mandarin to attack Stark back by blowing up his house and kidnapping Pepper. It is now up to Iron Man to rise up and face against the Mandarin to rescue Pepper and to discontinue his terrorist attacks. Now as I assume how we were all introduced to Iron Man 3, we were promised an action-packed, character driven, epic, as well as emotional story that can possibly take the comic book superhero genre to new heights. That is sadly not the case with Iron Man 3. What we get instead is an awkward, silly, rather annoying, and most of all disappointing payoff. The film is full of disappointments nothing to either redeem them or offer something better, it just gets disappointing as it goes on.




Of course Robert Downey Jr. returns as the always witty, charismatic, and one liner phrasing Tony Stark, who may I remind you is Iron Man. Now Robert Downey Jr. is not all that bad in this film, in fact a couple more of the lead actors to a decent job in their acting. It is just that this time around, the character was really lazily written. This film, I guess is supposed to be about the rise of a fallen hero, about Iron Man discovering something inner and deep about himself, therefore he becomes a stronger and wiser hero. That is not the case here. He does not learn from his mistakes, he constantly crashes into everything, there are moments when he decides to cop out, and to be honest the character becomes really unlikable due to the amount of careless mistakes he makes. The film is probably trying to show that even the greatest of heroes makes poor decisions once in a while, but what hero vows to his girlfriend, the one he "claims" to deeply love, that he would do anything to protect her from danger RIGHT BEFORE HE GIVES AWAY HIS HOME ADDRESS TO HIS ENEMY? It's like Batman inviting the Joker to the Bat Cave for a cup of tea, it is outright ludicrous! He may have been an enjoyable character in the past two installments as well as The Avengers, but here he is a constant let down and a constant failure. Then there is Pepper Potts, who again Gwyneth Palthrow not that bad in this. In fact the character in this film is not all that bad either. It is one of the elements I do like in the film. Pepper Potts is sweet, funny, supportive, smart, and some of Stark's wit probably rubbed on to her. Despite a PAINFULLY  cheesy scene involving her in the film's climax, mostly throughout I was able to stomach her okay. Don Cheadle returns from Iron Man 2 as Tony Stark's best friend Col. James Rhodes aka The Iron Patriot (used to be War Machine), and guess what...he's absolutely worthless. Again, Don Cheadle, pretty okay job in the acting department for what was given to him, but man was this guy useless throughout the entire film. I like how they advertised The Iron Patriot like mad for this film, when in reality he is just one of the big disappointing pay offs that come together in this mess of a film. On top of that, during the film's climax, he says one of the most corniest lines ever written for any film. I know it's a comic book superhero movie and probably if you have seen the film you know what I'm talking about but...really? Then we have Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin, who should be one of the best things about the film. When you see him in the trailers and various advertisements, he seems awesome and menacing. It is the kind of character whom you cannot wait to hear what his story his. He looks menacing, he looks intriguing, he is played by powerhouse actor Ben Kingsley, this is going to be great. NOPE. If some of you know what I am talking about, to me it is a huge, huge, HUGE disappointment. I know I am using that word "disappointment" a lot in this review but really that is what the film is and The Mandarin is one of them. You come in, pay your ticket, sit down, watch the film, and expect a really intriguing as well as great villain, but the payoff is more than insulting to not only fans of the comic books, but people coming in who expect a great and menacing villain in a story that is supposed to be epic and character driven, will be a little cheesed off.  And on top you will probably receive one of great actor Ben Kingsley's worst performances! But don't worry we have our secondary villain Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce). Oh no wait he's cliched, silly, painfully over the top, and weak as a stick! Not only his the performance unbearable, but his character is painfully cliched, we've seen this nincompoop character a million times. He starts off like Jim Carrey from Batman Forever as the obsessed, awkward, sociopathic, and poor hygienic scientist who obsesses madly over the film's hero. Later on he pretends to be a more subtle villain, but that as well fails as his over the top portrayal only gets worse as the film progresses. Oh yeah and we had Rebecca Hall, who successfully proved to be a worthless character, next topic. 




In a superhero action film, of course one would expect great visual effects and action scenes. You get some of that, but for the most part they are lackluster. There a lot of action scenes, and by far the best was the destruction of Tony Stark's house. Despite my dislike for the film, I am impressed that scene at least managed to entertain me. But the rest of action scenes have cheesy and laughable visual effects. Do not even get me started at what happens during the climax. Let me just say without spoiling anything, it is painfully, visually, and obnoxiously bad. Most of the action scenes do not even have Tony in his Iron Man suit. And in scenes where you think he is...he is sadly not. What the Iron Man films are also famous for is surprisingly its humor. Most of it of course is because of Tony Stark's one liners and Robert Downey Jr.'s witty and charming performance as this sarcastic but fun pain in the neck. But when this film tries  at comedy, man does it fail! Not only are a lot of the comedic scenes just not funny, they go on forerver. For example there is a scene where Tony sneaks into a news van and he gets caught by an obnoxious fan. The fan goes on and on how he Iron Man's biggest fan showing off his haircut and tattoos. His lines are not funny, the delivery is not funny, the character grew annoying really fast, not a fun scene. There is also a scene where Tony Stark is held captive by the villains as he calls his suit. He taunts the henchmen saying that in 10 seconds he is going to kill them. When he expects his suit to come it does not. He continues to say things like "Any minute now, trust me" while holding up his hands expecting the suit to come while the henchmen do not take him seriously. We get what the joke is about and its not even funny. It just goes on and one praying that will get a laugh out of the audience, and for me it did not do a thing.



The best way to describe Iron Man 3 is imagine a fight was going to go on between Muhammad Ali and Rocky Balboa. They hype it up so much that you think it will be the fight of the century. Two icons going head to head in the greatest boxing match of the century. After all the hype and the build-up you earn a chance to attend the event or you order it on pay-per view. And what do you get... Balboa and Ali doing a two man show of the Mamma Mia soundtrack. Weird comparison but that is how the film feels, a big disappointing mess. Sounds silly of me to be this harsh to a comic book superhero movie, but I believe no matter the background or source material a film is based on, when given the worthy effort, it can turn out to be pretty good. The film was trying to be the most emotional, epic, dramatic, and character driven of the trilogy, but it fails to deliver all the aspects for me.

GRADE: AP-




Want to know how you can request a review or countdown list? Find out more about Requested Reviews here