Movie Review: Iron Man 3

Obviously, one of the main focuses of Episode 55 of the AB Conversation podcast is Iron Man 3, so if you want to hear Anthony and I discuss this movie check that out.  One of my "New Year Pod Resolutions" is to do more written content for the website, including movie reviews.  I figure the only way I can get better at writing movie reviews and hopefully expanding the brevity of the podcast is by actually writing movie reviews, so let's go.



This summer movie season started off with a bang as Marvel Films knows how to make a blockbuster that sets the bar for all other movies in the summer months, in other words Tyler Perry Present's Peeples has some mighty stiff competition in Iron Man 3. Iron Man 3 continues the story of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who is still recovering from the alien attack on New York and has replaced the partying part of his life with his obsession of being Iron Man and creating new sets of armor.  Meanwhile, the villain in this movie, The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) begins taking over the television airwaves nationwide claiming responsibility for a number of bombing incidents. When The Mandarin's latest bombing attack becomes personal to Tony Stark, the battle between Iron Man and the mysterious villain known as The Mandarin is on.

I regard the first Iron Man movie as one of the best comic book films of all time along with The Dark Knight and The Avengers, but was a little disappointed with Iron Man 2.  With this one changing directors from Jon Favreau (who still appears in the movie as Happy Hogan) to Shane Black, I was excited to see the franchise take on a different direction.  Shane Black has wrote some awesome movies like The Monster Squad, Lethal Weapon, and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (which put Robert Downey Jr back on the map and earned him the role as Iron Man).  Due to Black's propensity for action comedies, I was expecting this to be an even more lighthearted than Favreau's which had a good sense of humor to them as well, and I was not mistaken.  This is easily the funniest of the Marvel films as Tony Stark is firing out one liners like photon blasts.  Iron Man 3 may also have some of the best action sequences of any Marvel movie to date, or at least right up there with The Avengers, the sheer destruction that takes place is impressive.

I only had a few minor quibbles with Iron Man 3, the first being that it didn't set up any of the upcoming movies in Phase 2 of the Marvel films.  The first Iron Man had that epic moment at the end of the movie where Nick Fury showed up and movie history was set into place and Iron Man 2 had more Nick Fury as well as the debut of the Black Widow.  While this keeps the rich history alive, it does nothing to push Phase 2 into hyperdrive or set up Avengers 2.  The 3D was added in post and therefore doesn't really do much to add to the movie, if I were you I would just hold onto the surcharge amount and see the movie in 2D.  You would think in a big action blockbuster like this, something would stand out of the 3D, but sadly it does not.  While I liked the music for the most part, those that are expecting to hear AC/DC blasting when Iron Man makes an appearance will be sorely disappointed.

Writing a review about this movie is pretty pointless because pretty much everybody that wants to see this movie is going to hit the theaters and see it opening weekend and those that aren't probably aren't all that interested in the first place.  If you are an inbetweener, I highly suggest checking it out as it works great as an action-comedy as well as a superhero flick.  The exchanges between Tony Stark and James Rhodes, harken you back to the dialogue between Riggs and Murtaugh.  While the duo of villains were quality actors in the second Iron Man (Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell), I was blown away by how they handled The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) and Aldrich Killian (Guy Pierce).  Ben Kingsley gives an amazing performance and his performance is reason alone to see this movie. Also a big kudos to Ty Simpkins' character Harley who plays off of Tony Stark so well and provides a ton of laughs and also Paul Bettany who never gets his due as the awesome voice of Jarvis. 

This action packed thrill ride is full of laughs and keeps re-inventing itself throughout.  While the there are still some contract issues to be sorted out and this very much ends the Iron Man trilogy, I would be very disappointed and surprised if this is the last we see of Tony Stark on the big screen.

4.5 Stars out of 5

If you like this movie, I recommend:



Read the comic book, the Extremis storyline in this movie is based on.