- DON’T READ THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN THE MOVIE!!!
By Barry Dutter
1) IRON MAN 3 is better than IRON MAN 2. This movie actually has a script, but, as with all summer movies, I’ll be damned if I can figure out exactly what the villain’s plot was. Killian creates the MANDARIN to cover up… the fact that some of his Extremis patients have blown up by accident?
Killian gives GWYNETH PALTROW super-powers because…why, exactly? Like all comic book movies, IM3 is fun while you’re watching it but it falls apart the minute you stop to think about it when you get home.
2) ROBERT DOWNEY JR. basically plays himself in these movies-- a fast-talking Hollywood jerk who has so little respect for most people, he seems to be talking to himself most of the time. He does not play TONY STARK the way that Tony has been portrayed in the comics over the years. While it’s true that Stark/Iron Man was very arrogant in the early issues of the AVENGERS, DOWNEY takes arrogance to the next level. Case in point: The TONY STARK in the comics would never call a child a pussy.
3) I didn’t buy Tony’s panic attacks in this movie. The TONY STARK in the comics would never have a panic attack just because a bunch of aliens tried invading New York. Tony is made of sterner stuff than that. This was clearly done just to give RDJ a new “arc” for a character he has played in 5 movies now (if you count his HULK cameo).
4) The movie puts Tony in a place where he is on his own, and he must rely on his own wits to survive. Um, wouldn’t that be a good time to call THE AVENGERS? Or even SHIELD? 5) BEN KINGSLEY would have made a great MANDARIN but the movie turns him into a joke.
6) TONY STARK spends less time in his armor here than in any movie yet. There should be a rule that a super-hero should spend at least 1/3 of the movie in his super-hero costume. This movie really should have been called THE ADVENTURES OF TONY STARK.
7) The prologue shows us that the EXTEMIS project has catastrophic results when tested on plants. So naturally they thought it would be a good idea to try it out on humans?
8) The bad guys in the final battle have an unbelievably easy time of tearing apart IRON MAN’s various armors.
9) The POST-CREDITS scene of the movie is perhaps the weakest one to appear in any Marvel movie, and it has the unintended effect of making the entire preceding two hours feel like a big joke…
10) This is the first IRON MAN movie to NOT use the song “Iron Man” by BLACK SABBATH. This is a good thing. I always felt it was just lazy for the filmmakers to use the song for the IRON MAN movies. Lyrically, the song has nothing to do with the Armored Avenger. (SAMPLE LYRIC: “Vengeance from the grave. Kills the people he once saved!” HUH?)
11) The worst part of the movie for me was that STARK destroys all of the IRON MAN armors at the end. Why? What possible purpose did this deserve, other than to provide some false sense of “closure” to the “trilogy.” Why destroy all his armors and then declare, “I am Iron Man?” Makes no sense.
12) SHANE BLACK is a better director than JON FAVREAU. But not that much better.
13) IRON MAN 3 features the ugliest armor yet. That color scheme blows!
14) If RDJ does retire, you know who would make a good replacement? The guy who played TONY STARK’S FATHER in the CAPTAIN AMERICA movie! He looked a lot like old school TONY STARK. He’s like RDJ without any of the smarminess.
