Time once more for my blog feature, DT Moviehouse Reviews, in which I make my way alphabetically through my DVD/Blu-Ray collection (you can see the list right here) and decide if each one was worth the money. Today, I review the second best of the Iron Man movies, Iron Man 3.

Screenplay by: Shane Black and Drew Pearce

Directed by: Shane Black

Tagline: None

What’s It About?

When Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) issues a direct challenge to international terrorist The Mandarin (Trevor Slattery), he find himself forcibly separated from his invincible suit of armor.

Why I Bought It:

Iron Man The First is the greatest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. It firmly established the company/genre as a viable moneymaker and kicked off a wildly successful multi-film, multi-star franchise that dominated pop culture and the world box office for 11 years. That movie was able to accomplish this epicurean feat of heavy lifting because underneath the impressive whiz-bang it featured the engaging central performance of an accomplished actor performing a pitch perfect multilayered narrative metaphor – a story about an amoral industrialist who literally experiences a change of heart. The character of Tony Stark is who we all wish we could be and should be held up as the definitive answer as to whether or not the real-life phenomenon of the billionaire is inherently immoral; because he could exist in our world….but he doesn’t.

Politics aside, Iron Man 3 is the easily the second best entry of the Iron Man trilogy as like the original, it upholds a compelling story metaphor (in this case, the Iron Man armor itself), and the character of Tony Stark undergoes a significant change in the course of the movie.

We pick up with Tony in the wake of the Battle of New York City depicted in The Avengers. Tony has come face to face with a world ending, mind-boggling extraterrestrial threat and though he and his super friends have come out on top, it has left him emotionally shaken. The night sky is a wide open mouth to him now, concealing hidden dangers in its depths. This paranoid thinking will eventually lead to him envisioning ‘a suit of armor around the earth,’ which will be further explored in Age of Ultron and lead directly to Civil War. In this outing, it manifests in an obsessive need to perfect the hero Iron Man, and the suit technology which gives his alter ego its name. He’s working late into the night creating new versions of the Iron Man armor, neglecting his paramour Pepper Potts (Gwynneth Paltrow), and generally becoming a source of concern for his best friends Rhodie (Don Cheadle) and Happy Hogan (John Favreau). In a great scene, played four laughs, Pepper asks him if the newest iteration of the suit is what, Mark 15? Tony surreptitiously covers the MK 45 stamp on it, like an alcoholic slipping an empty bottle into a rattling drawer.

Meanwhile, on the edge of his concerns, Killian, a rival engineering genius Tony slighted in the 90’s (the always great Guy Pearce) has returned at the head of his own company Advanced Idea Mechanics, promoting a revolutionary regenerative process called Extremis that seems to be doubling as another nefarious super-soldier program. In addition to that, the shadowy, imposing international terrorist The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), is striking with impunity and dominating the US airwaves.

When Happy, investigating one of Killian’s henchmen (James Badge Dale), is hospitalized in an explosion which the Mandarin takes credit for, Tony, in a rage (and possibly grateful for an earthly threat to attack) issues a direct challenge to The Mandarin, which the villain accepts by attacking and destroying his Malibu estate. Tony barely escapes in a badly damaged suit of armor and winds up in the middle of Tennessee, found by a tinkering kid (Ty Simpkins).

It’s at this point that the movie presents its thesis.

Tony Stark memorably declares at the end of Iron Man the first, “I AM Iron Man.” In The Avengers, Steve Rogers puts his declaration to the test – “Take away the suit and what are you?” Tony deflects the question with a boastful quip in that movie, though his sacrifice play at the climax is meant to settle it, but in IM3, he’s forced to face that question again head on. Is he really the hero without the suit?

The movie then is an odyssey of sorts for Tony, breaking him back down into the ingenious guy in the cave (Shaun Toub appears briefly in the beginning flashback, as if foreshadowing this Rocky 5-esque reversal of fortune to come), relying on this wits and creative know-how in the absence of his suit.

And Tony, bereft of his technology, does learn the truth about himself. When the chips are down, he’s still Iron Man. At his lowest point, when the world and his love are in the balance, the recharging of the suit isn’t gonna happen in time, and Tony’s in the throes of another panic attack, the kid, Harley, tells him, “You’re the mechanic. Build something.”

Tony proceeds to go on a shopping spree at a local hardware store and MacGuyver’s a series of hilarious and ingenious low-tech alternatives to the Iron Man suit, and manages a thrilling one-man assault on “The Mandarin’s” Miami mansion, blasting his way through henchmen and discovering the secret connection between The Mandarin and Killian.

I should address as an aside that the reveal of The Mandarin as a drugged out British actor put up as a patsy/figurehead by Killian was so unpopular with Marvel fans online that the company backtracked it with a canonical short film, All Hail The King. I personally had no problem with it. It’s an amusing twist and it tracks perfectly with the plot and the presentation of the story. It’s a pretty genius move by Killian, who is seeking to control (and sell his Extremis soldiers to fight in) the war on terror by controlling its two major combatants.

Shane Black said; “It never occurred to us the Mandarin is as iconic to people as, say, the Joker in Batman. Fans just wanted to see the magic rings shoot lasers.” Shrug.

In meta terms, Shane Black and Robert Downey Jr. is a really fun and interesting pairing. It’s common knowledge, but I was lucky enough to get the story from Shane Black himself at an early screening of his phenomenal detective noir sendup Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Literally. Black hung out after the screening and just talked in the hallway of the Arclight on Sunset – great guy). RDJ was at a low point in his career. Due to erratic personal behavior brought about by his legendary substance abuse, he had been deemed uninsurable anathema by the studios. Black vouched for him and brought him in as the lead in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a criminally underappreciated buddy action comedy with Val Kilmer that effectively showed RDJ was still a viable star. KKBB got RDJ the attention of John Favreau and thus the Iron Man job. Iron Man 3 was a thank you from RDJ to Shane Black. Tony’s narration feels like an homage to the narration in KKBB.

After a series of eye popping action set pieces, Tony ends up coming through the dark night of his soul of course, spectacularly destroying the legion of extraneous Iron Man suits and Killian in the process (metaphorically, he has both conquered the paranoid obsession that was the source of his self-doubt and corrected the sins of his past his previous ego brought about). He redirects his genius at removing the arc reactor from his chest and reversing the effects of Extremis on Pepper when she is injected with the serum against her will. He has answered Captain America’s accusation – without the suit, he’s still Iron Man, still a hero. “My armor was never a distraction or a hobby, it was a cocoon, and now I’m a changed man. You can take away my house, all my tricks and toys, but one thing you can’t take away – I am Iron Man.”

It’s a brilliant and engaging story, with a popping script worthy of the guy who penned Lethal Weapon. Dialogue is sharp enough to cut yourself on and the rapport of RDJ and Cheadle (and between RDJ and Ty Simpkins – a relationship that deftly avoids sappiness with some irreverent and very funny interplay) is infectious to watch. I don’t care what the comic book geeks say, Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery is as much a hoot as his clipped and psychotic Mandarin is menacing. It’s a really great dual performance sadly overshadowed by nerd rage.

Rebecca Hall as geneticist and former tryst Maya is kinda underutilized. Apparently her character suffered from rewrites. Stephanie Szostak is memorable as a scarred, super-powered henchman.

The movie ends with a cool montage of the previous Iron Man entries set to Brian Tyler’s killer, horn-heavy score which gives the movie an air of fun and effortless 60’s style cool none of the other entries possess.

Best Dialogue/Line:

Tony Stark: So, uhh, who’s home?

Harley: Well, my mom already left for the diner, and dad went to 7-Eleven to get scratchers… I guess he won, ’cause that was six years ago.

Tony Stark: Hmm… which happens, dads leave, no need to be a pussy about it, here’s what I need…

Best Scene:

Midway through the movie Killian’s henchman absconds from Air Force One with the President locked in the Iron Patriot armor and, to cover his escape, blows open the side of the plane and sends thirteen passengers tumbling out, leaving Iron Man to rescue them. He does this by gathering them mid-air one at a time and having them hold onto each other, electrifying their muscles so they can’t let go, slowing their descent into the water off the coast of Miami.

This is one of the most thrilling and original action sequences in the entire series of Marvel movies. It has a visceral, immediate quality thanks to the choice not to film it entirely CGI. The Red Bull professional skydiving team was cast in the secondary roles of people on the plane, given establishing shots and dialogue, and then actually pitched from the plane. They’re photographed mainly with a helmet mounted camera, giving the scene a chaotic, breathtaking look.

The crew did something like seven or eight jumps at 12,000 feet for a week to execute the sequence, with digital painters and rotoscopers augmenting the shots in post (adding the Iron Man suit over the stand-in/jump-in, eliminating the team’s parachutes, correcting the background for consistency etc).

The result is pulse pounding and I recall, elicited cheers in the theater when it ended.

Would I Buy It Again? Surely. I’m a completist and like I said, it’s the second best of the Iron Man movies.

Next In The Queue? TBD