I can't be the only one suffering from Marvel fatigue by now, surely? I understand that they want to establish a consistent brand, but the fact that they've functionally remade Iron Man five times now with varying quality of acting and humour has well and truly worn thin. That said, the acting and humour are the best they've ever been in Iron Man 3, so consider that a recommendation if you're still thrilled at the thought of yet another entry in Marvel's long line of highly competent and deeply anonymous blockbuster filmmaking.
The acting and the humour really are top-notch, actually. Iron Man 3 trades the first two films' director Jon Favreau (who still puts in an appearance as Happy the overbearing security guard) for Shane Black, who also wrote the screenplay. Black previously collaborated with Iron Man 3 star Robert Downey Jr. on the wonderful Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in 2005, where their personalities as director and actor were seemingly a perfect fit. If nothing else, Iron Man 3 proves that it wasn't a fluke - Downey Jr. hits a new peak as Tony Stark here, after coming off as a little disenchanted with it in The Avengers, while Black's acidic wit hasn't dulled at all (although it has been reined in; this is a PG-13 blockbuster).
Iron Man 3 opens with its absolute worst gesture: we're dumped in the middle of a flashback to 1999, being narrated by present-day Tony Stark. Flashbacks and voice-over are lazy storytelling at the best of times, but here it's only used to crudely insert a new villain into Tony's past for no reason that is ever satisfactorily paid-off. Why does Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) have to have crossed paths with Tony Stark prior to the present-day events of the movie? It never really ends up informing either character's motivations. Things pick up after that, at least. The voice-over is quietly taken out the back and shot while we catch up with Stark after the events of The Avengers. Things haven't been going too well - he can't sleep and he's been plagued by anxiety attacks ever since, and it's straining his relationship with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Meanwhile, America is being hit with a rash of terrorist attacks masterminded by the Mandarin (Sir Ben Kingsley), and no-one can quite figure out how he's doing it. Eventually he ends up on the wrong side of Stark's ire, but before Stark can take action his home is destroyed and he's sent on the run, without his expensive toys to back him up.
That's about as far as the plot can be synopsised without hitting spoiler territory. More than anything else, the plot of Iron Man 3 is characterised by shocking reveals, and it doesn't work at all. Putting aside the issue of predictability (I don't think I was ever less than two reveals ahead of the plot, your mileage may vary), it does awful things to the central conflict, or lack thereof. For most of its 135-minute running time, Iron Man 3 suffers from a distinct lack of a central villain, and it feels like there's a new (or a new old) one every ten minutes. Which is only compounded by the fact that none of the antagonists has much of a distinct personality, aside from Mandarin, who is entirely a gimmick.
At least the tone is mostly light. It's jokier than Iron Man 2, and probably the first film as well, and it stops the plot from getting too bogged down in its murky wheel-spinning. Eventually it culminates in an explosive climax, as these things do, and... Well, there's not a lot to say. The action is as it always has been. Did you enjoy the CGI-driven aerial combat in Iron Man and The Avengers? This is more of exactly the same. As someone who didn't, Iron Man 3 did not make me a convert. It's not a coincidence that the best film released under Marvel's studio to date is Captain America, which also had by far the smallest scale action, and it's telling that the best parts of this film are those in which Tony is robbed of his suit. Unfortunately, this only makes up about five minutes of the movie.
That's a lot of words spent discussing a movie that everyone already knows if they want to see or not. It's neither a disastrous misfire or a shot in the arm*. It's fun, in a very minor way, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit happy to see the back of it.
6/10
*At this point into the current superhero film cycle, I would welcome either with open arms.
