Hello and welcome back to the Geekdom, I will be your
Guide. Unless you have been living under a rock, you may have heard that Iron
Man 3 is a little conflicting for die-hard comic book fans. As a major comic
book fan, and an Iron Man fan, I
knew that I was going to be conflicted about some of the choices in the
film…which is why I saw it twice. I
don’t normally see a film multiple times in theaters due to money constraints,
but I knew that there are some films that I like more the second time
around. I knew that my review of Iron
Man 3 was going to be extremely biased towards the negative if I went by just
my first viewing. So did my second
viewing change my opinion? Let’s review
Iron Man 3.
The
Negative
The humor was a little off in this film. I know that
humor is in the eye of the beholder, and not everyone will laugh at the same
jokes. For an idea of the humor,
this is the Iron Man film where Tony Stark spends a good portion of the movie
wearing a limited edition Dora the Explorer watch. That statement alone should
make you question some of the thoughts that were put into Iron Man 3’s sense of
humor. The whole film is taken over by humor that is only funny because of its
bizarre nature, such as Tony bad mouthing a little kid, or Tony attacking a
mansion security using random stuff he picked up at a hardware store. In some
places this humor really works, but it gives the film a really bizarre feeling
to it.
Stark’s Iron tech was absolutely dreadful in this film.
We kind of spent the last two films going over how Tony Stark was the greatest
tech genius in the world and how his technology as well as his ingenuity was
beyond anything else. The Iron Man suits were slightly functional at best. They
broke apart fairly easily and they just seemed clumsy while in use. I
understand that the new suits were supposed to be prototypes that Stark built
in rapid succession, but I feel like even his first prototype was more
competent at times than these models.
The following will feature major spoilers regarding the
main villain. If you don’t want the plot spoiled, skip to the Positive section.
If you don’t care about spoilers or have already seen the film, continue
reading.
…
…
We good?
Okay
This section is meant to talk about the controversy
surrounding the main villain, The Mandarin. I was a big fan of the 90’s Iron
Man animated series, which starred The Mandarin as the main villain. While that
version of the Mandarin suffered from Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain
Syndrome, he still commanded a powerful presence on the screen and thus became
one of my favorite super villains. I knew that whatever they had in the film for
the Mandarin, I was going to be disappointed. I don’t know, something told me
that they probably weren’t going to go with the origin story where the Mandarin
is a banished Chinese terrorist who stumbles upon a crashed spaceship, that
once belonged to a race of inter-dimensional space dragons, and harvests the
ship’s energy core into 10 magic rings that each hold a separate super power
for him to command. I don’t know what it was, but something told me they
weren’t going to go in that direction for the film.
What I didn’t expect was that they decided to not really
depict the Mandarin at all. Instead the Mandarin we have seen advertised is
actually a bizarre actor named Trevor Slattery who is being used as a front to
cover the actions of Aldrich Killian, the head of AIM. The film tells us that
Killian is the actual Mandarin, but in reality I would say his character was
closer to the leader of AIM in the comics, The Scientist Supreme. I ended up
really liking Aldrich Killian he was a great villain and I found him to be a
major positive of the film. I’ll mention my favoritism of him here because his
being the main villain is a part of the major plot twist.
The reason I have a problem with The Mandarin in this
film is the adaptation of the story. Now I’m going to say that I am not one of
those people who complain about any change done to a character or story just
because I liked the original more. I am complaining about this adaptation
because they changed The Mandarin too much, to the point where he wasn’t
recognizable. The Mandarin is considered to be Iron Man’s greatest archenemy of
all time. The battles they have had in the comics are legendary, but instead of
adapting this iconic character, they used his image as a joke and claimed that
he was actually the rogue businessman, Aldrich Killian. I don’t think that the
public at large is going to leave the theater with a good idea of who The
Mandarin is. The general public could easily tell you who Lex Luthor or the
Joker are because of the fantastic adaptations the two characters have gotten. The
adaptation of these characters, while changing various things about the
original character per film, still remained generally faithful to who these
characters are. This was a chance to introduce non-comic book readers to Iron
Man’s greatest enemy. My problem with this adaptation of The Mandarin, is that
they didn’t adapt him at all.
The
Positive
The final fight scene was amazing. The action scenes in
general were a highlight of the film, but it was the final epic battle that was
the best. Tony unleashes his greatest weapon yet while in combat with his
greatest foe. A large amount of super
powered enemies, a few hostages, and a political assassination are all a part
of Iron Man 3’s final battle. It really is a fantastic scene to end the film
on.
Tony’s personal story arc was incredibly well written for
this film. Coming right off of the events from The Avengers movie, Tony is
suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from having face a giant alien
wormhole and the possibility of his death. It was really nice to see something
like that addressed. There are so many big action films where the heroes just
smugly walk away and get on with their lives without any worries. The first
Iron Man film had Tony caught in a terrorist attack only to wake up in a cave
with a car battery strapped to his chest and I’d say he came out mostly fine.
To see Tony have to deal with the events of the Avengers film really felt like
a realistic continuation of his story arc and it made the film great.
In
Conclusion
I won’t say that Iron Man 3 was the best film in the
series, but it was another good installment for the character. The action
scenes and character stories were fantastic, I only wish they had followed the
source material closer as well as take their own subject matter more serious.
If you enjoyed the first two Iron Man films, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one. 4
out of 5.
