“How do you know it’s officially summer? The days are getting warmer and sunnier? School’s out? There’s an abundance of happy furry critters running amuck? For me, summer officially starts with that first big budget blockbuster film. Yeah, go figure. So with Iron Man 3 last night, I now declare it to be summer! Yahoo!
Yes, I’m a total sucker for your big action movies, and right now nobody does it better than Marvel. But to be honest, I did have some concerns holding me back from getting too excited. I absolutely loved the first Iron Man, because it was a total surprise. No one really knew or expected much from this character, known to the average comic book geek, but not the average movie goer. And then, lo and behold, we get this unique and absorbing origin story, with some wonderful nerdy goodness. But more importantly we get Robert Downey Jr. He charmed the metal pants off that movie, and had the whole world fall in love. Iron Man 2, while it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t as exciting. It relied too much on RDJr, whose performance was now expected instead of a surprise. I was really worried that Iron Man 3 would befall the same fate.
Then there was also the whole Avengers thing. Marvel carefully crafted a series of individual movies, and then brought everyone together for a mega movie. How could we possibly go back to individuals? Wouldn’t anything seem trite in comparison? Would we be missing the rest of our gang of supers? Thankfully, all of my concerns were very well addressed.
Yes, still more RDJr being RDJr. But I felt there was a lot more substance to his character this time. He was, in a sense, dealing with the machines as an addiction. Circumstances also led for him to be separated from his suit for a substantial portion of the film. There was also some new suit technology that allowed for some really incredible and inventive action sequences, where he was going in and out of the suit or fighting with only pieces of it. And the post-Avengers thing? Brilliantly handled. The situation was referenced here and there, sometimes with some humor, but mostly as a trigger for anxiety attacks. The PTSD Stark was suffering gave us a rare glimpse of vulnerability for his usually iron facade.
Beyond that, very fun movie overall. Ben Kingsley was fantastic. Gwyneth got to step away from damsel in distress a bit. Loved Don Cheadle. No brass rat like in previous films or at least none that I noticed. Rhodey was wearing a large class type ring in an early scene, but it was definitely not a rat. Oh and a post credits scene worth waiting for.
Iron Man 3 – \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/