Iron Man 3

[selenak]

And lo, I managed to watch Iron Man III unspoiled. To allow others that pleasure, I shan't use the icon I sorely want to. Also? Tony Stark managed to break the curse of the comics film trilogies, wherein usually the third installment is the weakest (see: Spider-man, X-Men, Batman). This film rocks, and manages to both form a great conclusion to the solo outings (if Marvel so chooses) and leave Tony & friends available for future Avengers shenanigans.



Now I had tried not to read anything about this film, but even so, I couldn't avoid hearing that Ben Kingsley was cast as the Mandarin. This left me hoping for something like the twist in Iron Man where the Afghan terrorists are actually funded and frontmen for the real villain, Obediah (aka the military industrial complex), but still not exactly glad that they were going to use the Mandarin at all. Well, I needn't have worried, since what the film actually does with the Mandarin is perfect and in retrospect the only thing you can do with a villain created as a Yellow Peril stereotype. To wit, as opposed to Tony's kidnappers in IM I, who were actually Afghans, he's a British actor named Trevor and hired to play a Yellow Peril stereoytpe which in-story was specifically created because that's what a white guy thought American believe a scary terrorist looks like, as a distraction and a trick. Ben Kingsley is visibly having a blast as Trevor the beer guzzling football (soccer for Americans) fan out for actorly glory, and it's probably an in-joke to the fact so many Brits get used to play villains in Hollywood productions that Kingsley gets to use his own accent and wasn't directed to play Trevor as an American.

As for the actual villain: Guy Pearce has also fun being smarmy and smug, no surprise there (and desperate in the introductory sequence). Iron Man II also tried to make both Ivan Vanko and Justin Hammer over the top reflections of different aspects of Tony; I think it works better here with Pearce's character and Maya Hansen, though I regretted that Maya's role wasn't as large as it was in Warren Ellis's Iron Man: Extremis, an obvious influence on this film, where the theme of Maya and Tony as fellow scientists who have in different ways sold out but still long to give their scientific abilities redemptive meaning is a major, not a minor aspect. (Maya's last words to Tony in the book, after he figured out the truth, are something along the lines that he's no better than she is, and Ellis lets Tony reply that no, he isn't, but he tries to be.) Then again, for that to work in a film the whole plot would have had to be different, and I liked this one, small role for Maya not withstanding.

But enough about the villains. What makes the film so hugely enjoyable are how well our heroes are put to use. I had liked Pepper and the fact she hadn't ended up with Tony in Iron Man I, had not liked the romantic turn in IM2, and had been converted to the pairing by Joss Whedon in a few minutes in The Avengers, so I was hopeful, yet also fretting, re: what would IM3 do with Pepper and Tony/Pepper? The banter was good (movieverse Tony and Pepper always were), and when there was mutual saving when the Malibu house was blown up - Tony directing the armor to form around Pepper, Pepper using the armor to shield Tony as well, then get Maya out - I relaxed on that front. So much did I relax, in fact, that I was 90% certain there would be pay off for Pepper getting kidnapped by the bad guy halfway through the film that would not be Tony saving the damsel. And when Pearce's character started to pump her with Extremis I was certain, certain enough not to be distressed by the plunge to supposed doom. That was a Chekovian gun if ever I saw one: it had been established repeatedly that the surviving Extremis candidates could make it out alive of explosions, plus from a Doylist pov there would have been no reason for the villain to use Extremis on Pepper if the film hadn't intended to go somewhere with it. Yes, from a Watsonian pov it was to blackmail Tony into working on stabilizing the Extremis formula, but there had to be a Doylist reason as well. So while I was waiting and hoping for the discovery of Pepper's survival, her getting to be the one to save Tony and defeat and finish the main villain was still a special kick. What had converted me in The Avengers to the relationship was continued and developed further here, that they actually had managed the transition from boss/employee to equal partners. I had a big smile on my face during the Pepper-the-superhero scene.:)

Actually, I smiled a lot in the film, because it remembered that one very enjoyable part in IM1 had been the Tony-builds-experiments-screws-up-then-succeeds sequence, and one reason why one can care about a "billionaire playboy philantropist" is the "genius mechanic" part, that he's really good building and inventing things from scratch. So Tony gets to do a lot of that in this film as well, justified by plot. The interaction with the kid throughout was golden as well, not least because it was funny and occasionally touching without ever veering into sentimentality. (The kid trying to guilt trip Tony and Tony noticing immediately was a case in point.) It also occurs to me that with the boy and with Gary the tattoed fan in the present, we saw a difference between Tony in the past and Tony in the present. Tony in the past doesn't even notice fanboy!Guy Pearce other than as an annoyance to make fun of; Tony in the present is still prone to quips but also doesn't ridicule vulnerable-to-him people like Gary, instead treats him as a human being.

Which brings me to another big difference to IM2. Tony there believed he was dying which made for extra appalling behaviour, including towards Rhodey and Pepper. Whereas here, while he's dealing with the after effect of almost having died in The Avengers (which makes for lovely emotional continuity, btw), he doesn't take it out on them. The banter with Rhodey, including his teasing him about the "Iron Patriot" label, is affectionate, and with Happy, too, he comes across as a friend, not a boss. (Btw, Jon Favreau gets more dialogue here than in his own films.) Speaking of Happy, whoever in the scriptwriting team had the idea of making Happy Hogan a Downton Abbey fan (who seems to ship Sibyl/Branson, because of course he does): thank you, that was the kind of detail that makes Happy a real character, not just a cameo gag and nod towards the comics. (Also, since Tony recognizes the show on sight I assume he's been watching as well. My own disenchantment not withstanding: I love that. Can't wait for likeadeuce to write a "Happy and Tony argue about the third season" meta fic.)

Another sign of Tony being genuinenly changed while maintaining his quintessential Tony-ness: little touches like the fact he tells the mother of the unfortunate Jed Davis her son was no suicidal bomber. Or, of course, the obvious symbolism of HOW he manages to save the people sucked out of the air plane, enabling them to help each other and thus managing to save the lot, not just a few.

And lastly: the obligatory post-credits scene about two thirds of the people in my cinema were patient enough to wait for. Because The Avengers hadn't just provided Tony with a near death experience and alien invasions but also with some new friends. Thus, the revelation that the person whom he was narrating the events of the film to weren't, as I had at different times assumed, Pepper or Happy Hogan, but Bruce Banner, was absolutely perfect. And Bruce's reaction was hilarious. Somewhere in the credits, while waiting, I read "special thanks to Joss Whedon" , and until I hear otherwise I chose to believe Joss wrote that tag scene. Because it's his type of humor and he invented and launched the good ship Science Bros, after all.:)

Comments

[likeadeuce]

I skipped the text of the review (won't see the movie until Saturday) but I did have to look through your icons and try to figure out which of your icons would be spoilery. Probably too much to hope it's this one:

[laurashapiro]

Thank you for this review. I had decided not to see the film based on the racism I anticipated around The Mandarin. It sounds like I may not have to boycott after all -- unless it's doing hipster racism. You know, that thing where they get to have their racism but feel okay about it because they're shining a red light on it?

[andraste]

Yay, you got to see it unspoiled!

Trevor is the best Mandarin ever. (Not that there is a whole lot of competition, but I do like Gene Khan from Armored Adventures a lot. Which given that it's a High School AU, just proves that the only thing you can do with the Mandarin is throw the Yellow Peril stereotype out and start again, or actively make fun of it.) Kingsley was obviously having a great time with the role. Stealing scenes away from RDJ is no mean feat.

I also loved Rhodey, Super Pepper and the Science Bros epilogue. And Tony being Tony. It was a great film and a wonderful ending to the trilogy.

[lilacsigil]

Hooray! You got to see it unspoiled! I was really hoping you would, since there's so many lovely surprises in it, #1 being the Mandarin. I loved the story of Tony having to make things again, loved everything Pepper did, and really bought their relationship as equal and loving (if a bit cranky at times). Rhodey having to do all the rescuing without his suit was awesome, Pepper was dynamite, and I think about the only thing I didn't like was "disabled people all to be cured more than anything" - it would have been nice to see someone acknowledging that they didn't know it would turn them into human bombs, or someone preferring to have no legs than work for Killian.

[skywaterblue]

Ohhh. You know, Bruce Banner's been recast so many times now that despite having seen the Avengers several times, I JUST got it. It doesn't really resolve my problems with the ending of the film itself - it all felt deeply unearned to me, like a sketch of a film that needs more filling out, but it does help bridge the whole 'uh, but Tony's going to be back in the suit in a year' issue.

[likeadeuce]

Nice review, which reminds me of the things I enjoyed about the film -- I have to admit, it wasn't really my thing overall. It was fun but I guess it felt kind of superficial to me, in a way that the previous films (despite their copious flaws) never did. Certainly I enjoyed the Downton references, though if I were going to write fic it might be about Trevor's masterful Lear and how it led to him working for Killian. Maybe a 5 times on the subject of how 'acting' comes into the story, including a Downton vignette, a Trevor vignette, something about Henry Hellrung and -- oh, I'd probably get Steve Rogers in there.

ETA: I am probably in a significant minority here, but I was much more compelled by the villains in Iron Man 2. I mean, I loved what we saw of Maya but as you said her arc was rather truncated. And as much as I dig Guy Pearce, I thought Killian was a bore. I kept vainly hoping Justin Hammer would turn out to be the power behind the throne.

[kaffy_r]

I just saw the movie yesterday, and I really, truly enjoyed it. (I must admit, I was certain the young man playing the kid was related to Gwyneth Paltrow, he looked so much like her. That was about the only thing that threw me out of the story.) I thought it was well written, very adult, saved from being deeply cynical by something I haven't put my finger on yet, and reminded me that Robert Downy Jr. is Tony Stark. And Paltrow is, for me, Pepper in a way no one else could have been. I'm so glad they gave her the hero's part in this movie!

[timetravellingbunny]

I finally saw it tonight - yes, two months after its release, but I've wanted to see it for a long time and just never found the time. It was really worth watching in the cinema, and worth waiting to the end of the credits, even if this may have lead to me missing my tram. (I always wait till the end of the credits, and I'm usually the only one, or one of two or three people in the theater who stay right to the end - for every movie. I would have done it even if I didn't know that Marvel movies usually have a post-credits scene. It's one of those moments when I smile and feel a certain Schadenfreude thinking of the people who miss out because they run from the theatre immediately as the credits start rolling.)

I loved the way that the movie played with stereotypes, from the way Pepper Potts was used, to the Mandarin reveal, which I saw coming pretty early on, but it was one of these cases when this is not a bad thing: I was hoping that the Mandarin would be revealed to be a an actor posing as a terrorist, because it made such perfect sense and would make the story better and smarter. So when it was revealed, it was a "YES!" moment for me. I'm not familiar with the Iron Man comics, but in the movie, he was set up as a stereotypical Middle-Eastern villain, an Osama Bin Laden type. (It is also smart that they have updated a racist Yellow Peril stereotype into another racist stereotype that's far more topical nowadays.) I was already used to this franchise being smarter than that and I expected better than overdone cliches; besides, there was something off about Ben Kingsley's Mandarin from the start - probably his strange unidentifiable accent (at moments it seemed like someone trying to sound "exotic", at moments I heard hints of a British accent) combined with his over-theatrical intonation.

Although, I must admit that what gave me the idea may have been the fact that I remember an off-hand joke made in an episode of The Lone Rangers, the X-Files spinoff, where a character claimed that Saddam Hussein was really a small time US actor who "does good ethnics".

I loved the scene where Tony saves the people from the plane. I also liked that the movie completely ignored the "oh, who shall I save?" dilemma that Rhodes' line had set up and that would no doubt be milked for its worth in some other superhero movie. We can't save them both? Sure we can! And in the meantime, Tony will first save the people who are in most immediate danger of dying a horrible death.