Yes, I know I’m plenty late on reviewing this one, but I only just got around to seeing it. The closest movie theater is about a 30 minute bus ride from my house and I’m pretty lazy when it comes to getting down there on opening night. But I have finally seen it and may now express my feelings on this, the third installment in the Iron Man franchise. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with where they decided to take it.
The story follows good old Tony Stark as he continues his adventures as Iron Man, though post-Avengers he appears to have some serious anxiety disorder. The threat of aliens from the stars and the imminent destruction of the Earth have left him in quite a state. Still, he carries on. Enter his nemesis for this round - The Mandarin. The Mandarin is a terrorist that seems to be blowing things up with bombs that leave no trace. The truth, however, lies in a project known as Extremis.
Extremis is the brainchild of Aldrich Killian and Maya Hansen. It is a method for altering human DNA in such a way as to allow the body to regenerate quickly, though there are some other interesting effects (i.e.: super powers) that come along with it. Killian, the man behind the Mandarin, is shooting people up with his new project and turning them into a race of super soldiers. His goal? Get the project officially funded and make a killing off of it. Or at least that’s what he starts out wanting.
Stark, being the arrogant guy that he is, challenges the Mandarin to come after him. Naturally, Killian obliges and ends up blowing Stark’s mansion to hell. After a narrow escape, Stark finds himself far away from home with a broken suit. From there, he must look into the death of one of the bombers, to discover that there was indeed no bomb involved, only a malfunctioning Extremis test subject.
Finally, Stark has his final showdown with Killian, who is basically a super-bad-ass version of the Extremis warriors shown thus far. The last battle brings in an army of Iron Man suits to fight the many Extremis soldiers while Tony takes on Killian and Rhodey tries to save the
At first, I was a little confused about this one, as most of the film has Tony outside of the Iron Man suit, trying to do things with the help of only a part of his technology. After a while, I began to appreciate the approach. We get to see the main character as he reasons his way through things and realize that even without the suit, Tony Stark is still a bad-ass because of his huge brain.
There wasn’t a lot of development of the secondary characters, but they still put in great performances, particularly Guy Pearce (who plays Killian). It was also pretty cool to see Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) kicking a little butt in this one. And the finale, with Tony jumping from suit to suit while fighting Killian and desperately trying to find something that works to kill him, was the highlight of the film.
Though the movie could have definitely gone further in exploring Stark’s trauma, the overall film was great. It was a different spin on the typical super hero flick, worthy because it didn’t just rely on the same old gimmicks. And it was cool to see Iron Man fighting some super-powered villains for a change. All-in-all, a brilliant addition to the franchise and the Marvel cinematic universe as a whole.
The ending, however, leaves us wondering whether we will see Iron Man 4. It comes to a certain conclusion and though Iron Man is reported to be coming back for Avengers 2, Robert Downey, Jr. is still up in the air whether he will continue to play Stark. I guess we’ll just have to cross our fingers on that one, because it would be hard as hell to replace him.
Iron Man 3 poster courtesy of fanpop.com
2 comments