If I had to choose just one word to describe Iron Man 3, it’d be fun. It’s a fast-paced, action-packed, and highly entertaining superhero movie. It could use some more rock numbers that made the first 2 awesome, but overall it is the right type of film for the series.
Of course like any movie, Iron Man 3 isn’t without its haters or discontent viewers. But given that you know what to expect, you shouldn’t be disappointed – especially if you like director/co-writer Shane Black’s more mainstream work (the action classic Lethal Weapon, for instance).
In addition to the usual cast of Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle (who took over from Terrence Howard after the first Iron Man), we get Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley (Gandhi, Schindler’s List, House of Sand and Fog), and Golden Globe nominees Rebecca Hall (The Awakening, Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and Guy Pearce (Memento, Lockout, LA Confidential).
Keeping in mind Robert Downey Jr. has 2 Oscar nominations, Don Cheadle has one, and Paltrow has one Academy Award, we can add the cast of Iron Man 3 to the superhero movies that casts critically acclaimed actors who also happen to be box-office draws – e.g. check out the cast of Man of Steel.
Some viewers weren’t happy with the twist, but I found it quite fun- it was one of those laugh-out-loud moments for me, and it was perfectly acted and directed.
It was also fun to see our beloved cheeky hero Tony Stark to be suffering from anxiety attacks after everything they went through in The Avengers. Alien attacks can get to a guy, apparently…
And yes, there are clichés in the movie.
The Story:
In 1999, at a Christmas part in Bern, we meet the ever-cheeky Stark hooking up with an intelligent hottie (Rebecca Hall), and ignoring anyone who is not his date. Among the ignored and humiliated is Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a geeky scientist adoring Tony’s work and wanting to work with him.
Fast-forward to now, Tony is with his former assistant/current managing partner/acting CEO Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). While she is busy running the firm, Tony is obsessing over creating back-up Iron Man outfits, paranoid that there can be other alien attacks he will need to protect Pepper from.
In the meantime, the recent terrorist leader The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) who is hacking satellites and distributing scary messages and threatening the president (William Sadler).
When a different kind of bomb badly injures Tony’s friend/head of security Happy (Jon Favreau, director of the first Iron Man) and puts him into hospital, he openly threatens The Mandarin, and Mandarin responds more openly and violently than anyone could have predicted.
With his house and lab pretty much destroyed, Tony has his intelligence, Jarvis on zero battery and smart kid he runs into to deal with Mandarin, as well as the weird Terminator-like human/robots who just don’t get killed easily…
**
Have fun!!!
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