Iron Man 3. Written and directed by Shane Black. Starring Robert Downey Jr, Ben Kingsley, Gwyneth Paltrow and Guy Pearce. Rating: 7 (out of 10)
It's telling that the poster for Iron Man 3 is the first of the franchise not to feature the iconic mask: the man wears the suit, and not the other way around.
That's the message to be gleaned from the latest Tony Stark film, with writer-director Shane Black at the helm (with Jon Favreau taking an executive producer credit). Black made his mark with such big '80s and '90s action films as Lethal Weapon and Last Action Hero, but has largely been MIA since 2005's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, also starring Downey.
Black packs tons of firepower- and a few retro action faces - into the 130minute run time but manages to keep Tony's humanity front and centre. Unlike Iron Man 2, which was saddled with allusions to the upcoming Avengers movie, IM3 makes only a few references to aliens and wormholes, and never feels like a deliberate setup for the sequel.
Of course, there is one souvenir from the Avengers' time in New York: Tony's anxiety attacks, which pop up every time he takes his mind off his work. "Nothing's been the same since New York," Tony finally confides to girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). "I'm just a man in a can."
This is a welcome chink in Iron Man's smarmy veneer, as is his relationship with a 10-year-old boy named Harley (Ty Simpkins, Insidious), played for laughs without being cutesy.
The jury is still out on how Marvel purists will welcome Disney's take on The Mandarin, a villain who is not all that he seems, and is a far departure from the Chinese national in the comic book series.
Tony offers his help in dealing with the Osama bin Laden lookalike but is told to leave it up to the U.S. government. It becomes personal when Tony's old pal/bodyguard Happy (Favreau) is injured in one of the blasts. It's not advisable for a superhero to give out his home address on live TV, but that's what Tony does, inviting the Mandarin for a chit-chat.
Meanwhile, we are reminded that it all stems from a 1999 New Year's Eve Science conference in Bern, when all we really needed to worry about was a Y2K attack. There Tony brushed off the business plan of an overeager Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), leaving him waiting on the rooftop as he bedded a sexy botanist in his hotel suite. Rebecca Hall is Maya Hanson, a welcome presence as Tony's one-night-stand. Hard to believe that keeping someone waiting (Killian) and a roll in the hay (Maya) is motivation enough for both characters to race to the dark side, but such is Tony Stark's magnetic power.
Col. Rhodes (Don Cheadle, cheated out of any real screen time) is back, suited up as the Iron Patriot, recently renamed and painted red, white and blue. William Sadler (Die Hard 2!) plays the president; Miguel Ferrer (Robocop!) is the vice-president. However the villains here aren't nations but corporations, reflecting the present-day collective discontent of the 99 per cent.
The science is a little murky in places, involving thermogenic currencies and a limb-replacement technology that features the side effect of turning its patients into human bombs. But the explosions are fantastic: the amazing destruction of Tony's Malibu beach house is a highlight; "barrel full of monkeys at 18,000 feet" is my favourite.
And the Iron Man suits get tweaked: the trailer makes no secret of the fact that Tony creates a mini army during his bouts of insomnia, and the film features a cool new way for him to suit up remotely, with some humourous results. I have mixed feelings about Pepper wearing the Iron Man suit. Nice to see her out of stilettos, but only a few minutes earlier Tony told someone else that the suit was only calibrated for him.
No matter: "Ever since that guy with the big hammer fell out of the sky, subtlety has had its day." By now we know to keep our eye out for Marvel papa Stan Lee, and to wait for the trademark bonus scene after the credits roll. Filmmakers have done the remarkable with an over-stuffed genre: made us want more.
