[dropcap]A[/dropcap]h, Iron Man. To the Marvel Universe, he’s the iconic philander of Malibu, California. His country praises him for the explosive weaponry he brought it. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) brings many things to his world, but he’s mainly known for his ability to create peace on the Earth. As a part of the Avengers, he aided in the fall of an invasion. He also has his own adventures. But then he fell from greatness, like so many do. The third installment of the cinema’s Iron Man franchise tells this story. Or rather, Tony Stark does.
Things spin off with a flashback. Stark looks back at something he did on New Year’s Day in 2000 which ends up changing his whole perspective of things. The story Tony tells is a solid one. It’s about a hero who invites an attack from a terrorist and ends up losing nearly everything he loves. The problem is, Tony isn’t sure what he loves. Is it his girl, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) or do his hobbies come first? And so the story of love and loss goes. I’ll admit I was surprised with the significant plot twists the writers threw at me, but I won’t say they were all that original.
As with the other two Iron Man films, this one approaches humor like Tony Stark in his Audi R8: relentlessly. Most of it seems forced. The typical Iron Man humor of Stark and his converser is strong as ever, and growing very dull. Some lines aren’t so bad, but overall I got the feeling that this humor just can’t adapt to a different situation. Instead, Robert Downey Jr.’s character resorts to being obnoxious in any situation thrown at him. Yet somehow the next minute he is able to understand how someone feels and finish a serious conversation. It feels like it wants to be a comedy, joking about truly serious matters and even acting irresponsible in terrorist situations, much like a child. Only this time, it’s so immature that the Iron Man portrayed has reached a new low, one that’s not honorable.
The main problem with the whole film is that Downey Jr. only has so many actor cards and the new director here, Shane Black, used up his last batch early in development, leaving nothing for the rest of the film. That’s why you can easily locate scattered fragments of comical behavior and when you try to put together the puzzle, the pieces don’t fit. The Iron Man watcher is not looking for a family comedy mixed with some Django Unchained, but rather chasing the character Robert Downey Jr. created back in 2008. Where has that magic gone?
Most of the character development went well, until it got to the villain. First, he’s given a short backstory at the beginning of the film, but the writers don’t go into much depth. There are clues here and there as to what the man does with his life, but when it’s suddenly revealed that he’s the terrorist the world seeks, things get interesting. Maybe it was terrible acting on Guy Pearce’s part or maybe there’s just a disconnect between the director and writer, because he almost seems like he’s not paying attention to his character. All I saw was a constant circle of throw, smash, choke, and walk away enraged. He had the potential of — and even seemed to strive towards — being the Joker from The Dark Knight, which is a character that every nemesis suddenly must try to be.
Lastly, the soundtrack. I love hearing a beautiful score whenever possible, but Brian Tyler failed with this composition. The music was a noisy, redundant, and even dull kerfuffle. It had its moments of excitement and there were just too many. That could have been the fault of the film itself, which was thoroughly intense, but all this soundtrack did was make me think the film would be better without it. It wasn’t unoriginal, just overly-epic.
Like with the soundtrack, Iron Man 3 as a whole is overshot. It tries to be so great that it falls just like the hero within. Thankfully, it manages to recover most of its parts and reassemble things by the concluding ten minutes. In a nutshell, this film was disappointing. The trailers made it out to be something completely different and it had a hard time succeeding at just continuing the legacy of Iron Man. It’s good this makes a trilogy because there’s not a reason to keep going. Even though its lesson (heroes must fall; terrorists shall rise) has potential, the implementation isn’t all it could be.
Still, after the credits there was a clear message: “Tony Stark will return.”