I know that most of you have been champing at the bit waiting for my thoughts on Iron Man 3 and you now have your wish. I liked it. The end. Okay, you probably wanted a little more than that. There will probably be some spoilers. Okay, there will probably be a bunch of spoilers.
The movie starts out with Tony having troubles sleeping and basically focusing all of his time building new suits. Turns out that the events from The Avengers have left him with some anxiety attacks. Pepper is sick of his constant tinkering in the basement.
Aldrich Killian and a girl that Tony slept with, Maya Hansen, have been developing Extremis, which allows injured people to regenerate whatever is wrong. Missing a limb, a new one grows back. Unfortunately it has a slight side effect: people tend to explode and can generate heat as a weapon.
During this time, a terrorist named the Mandarin is attacking the United States and Tony decides to challenge him after Happy is injured in one of the explosions. The Mandarin responds by destroying Tony’s house and almost killing Pepper and Maya (who was at the house to explain that Aldrich is helping the Mandarin).
The world believes Tony is dead and he goes on a bit of road trip to discover what he can about the Mandarin. He gets help from a kid named Harley, who was a pretty funny sidekick. Tony eventually discovers where the Mandarin is broadcasting from, Miami, and pays him a visit. The Mandarin is actually a British actor, who thinks that this is all a big show. He is provided with drugs, booze, money, and girls and told that all the terror attacks are green screen. Aldrich Killian is actually behind it all.
There is a big battle with Tony and James fighting a bunch of Extremis soldiers. Tony calls in all of his suits and keeps changing into them. Aldrich injected Pepper with the Extremis serum and she is the one who ends up killing Killian. The movie ends with Tony helping remove the Extremis from Pepper and he destroys all of his suits, plus he has the battery and shrapnel removed from his body, implying he was done. Then as he gets into his car, he says that the truth is he is Iron Man. So I guess we will see him in the next Avengers movie.
Random Stuff
-The Extremis storyline comes from one of my favorite writers: Warren Ellis. I was shocked when I heard this was the route they were going to take since I always thought people disliked Ellis’ idea. I guess enough people did like it.
–The Mandarin idea was pretty cool. The idea of the Mandarin is so ridiculous, a scientist who uses alien technology to create ten rings that give him super powers. Then tries to conquer the world. Although, did they get the idea of the villain being a ruse from Batman Begins?
-After the credits, we learn that Tony has been telling this entire story to a sleeping Dr. Bruce Banner (the Hulk), who wakes up and says that he is not a therapist. It was amusing, but definitely not worth sitting through ten minutes of credits (I have heard that Marvel put a bunch of fake names into the credits to make them longer).
-It was cool to see some of his different suits. There are some major internet debates being waged right now over whether or not the one that held up the crane was the Hulkbuster. I believe it was, since the way the filmed the suit crouching while lifting it was almost exactly the way it looks when the Hulk lifts something heavy.
-I thought that Shane Black put in some Lethal Weapon references. Maybe not references, maybe just nods. I feel like the whole Christmas tree farm felt very much like the time we meet Mel Gibson in the first Lethal Weapon film. Was there anything from Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang?
-I loved Rebecca Hall in The Town and wish they would have done more with her in the film. I feel like they must have edited out an important scene of her that may show up in the deleted scenes.
-The humor was still in this movie, more than I thought it would be, since this one seemed like it might be a bit darker. The way Tony kept mocking Harley was pretty funny, the kid also seemed to be able to give it right back.
-Out of curiosity, where was the Hulk while all this was happening? Or Captain America? I mean, the President is kidnapped and Captain America cannot be bothered for a rescue? Seems a little weird.
Those were my thoughts on the film. What did you think?
Comic Book Movie Grade: B+
I highly recommend reading Filmdrunks review of the film.
