Iron Man 3 Review

Three, if we are to rely upon the veracity of De La Soul, is the magic number.

But the truth is, three is often a dangerous number when it comes to movies. Too often it seems that the third movie is the one in which a franchise reveals its flaws; sometimes (like in Beverly Hills Cop III) it shows itself  as a franchise that has run out of steam and out of ideas, sometimes (like in Jaws 3) it shows itself to be almost a parody of the movie that spawned it, while other times (like in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Jr) it's just so apocalyptically bad that it's hard to believe that it shares even the vaguest creative DNA with its predecessors.

So, with Jon Favreau (director of the first two Iron Man installments) having stepped aside and Shane Black (writer of Lethal Weapon and writer/director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) taking over the directorial reins for this third installment, the question was whether Iron Man still had its mojo workin' or whether it was set to join a long list of third movie failures...

Iron Man 3 picks up on events post-The Avengers and we meet a Tony Stark who is struggling to sleep, is struggling to maintain his relationship with Pepper, and is trying to cope with occasional bouts of anxiety attacks (which I would imagine are very much a risk after having hand-delivered a nuke to another dimension and then falling several miles to near certain doom). Yes, the old Tony Stark is still there - the playfulness, the witty repartee - but things clearly aren't the same for him since the Chitauri hit town last summer.

And while Tony struggles to come to terms with his inner demons, a new terrorist is in town - The Mandarin (played by Ben Kingsley), who is seemingly always several steps ahead of the US government, and whose actions soon bring him into direct conflict with Tony Stark. But, as well as a terrorist to worry about, there's also Aldrich Killian (played by Guy Pearce), a blast from Tony Stark's past whose motives are initially rather unclear but who is clearly playing with some dangerous technology...

For me, Iron Man 3, deftly avoids the obvious third movie pitfalls and, despite us joining a slightly more world weary Tony Stark, this was - for me - the lightest movie in the franchise so far, with more than a few nods in the direction of family entertainment (while still managing a fewer slyer winks for its older fans). Robert Downey Jr. simply is Tony Stark, to the point that it's hard to see where Robert ends and Tony begins and that's good because there were a few places where it was up to Downey to carry the whole movie (luckily, that's the kind of challenge he's up for).

Guy Pearce delivers as Killian, while Ben Kingsley manages to present a truly multi-faceted performance in the role as The Mandarin. There is plentiful action, more explosions than you can shake a stick at and enough CGI to keep even the most devout CGI fan nourished for some time...

...but, it was not quite the comic book perfection that we got with The Avengers. The motives of the main villain were more than a little unclear and, at times, his plan seemed to be rather torturous when something far simpler could have delivered exactly the same benefits. Also, despite there being more people in suits in this movie than all the other Iron Man movies put together, there was less Iron Man in Iron Man 3 than I was expecting (and far more Tony Stark).

I also imagine that comic book fans will have their own opinions on this interpretation of The Mandarin, which stands out as quite different to the character we've come to know through the Iron Man comics. Some will see this version as a master stroke, others are likely to come away feeling they've changed the character too much...

But, none of that can take away from the fact that Iron Man 3 delivers quality, popcorn-fuelled, entertainment and is the first true blockbuster of this movie year that really has to be seen in the cinema to be properly appreciated. It's fun, it's action-packed and - while it has a few moments where the pace dips - it's still a solid 8.5 out of 10 for me.