{"id":782,"date":"2013-04-24T18:25:02","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T08:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/?p=782"},"modified":"2013-04-24T21:36:19","modified_gmt":"2013-04-24T11:36:19","slug":"iron-man-3-a-review-or-an-excuse-for-one-spoilers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/2013\/04\/24\/iron-man-3-a-review-or-an-excuse-for-one-spoilers\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Man 3 – a review (or an excuse for one) SPOILERS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This morning I saw Iron Man 3<\/em>, which was launched in Australia well ahead of the US (as happens with many of the cinema blockbusters\u00a0these days). I was looking forward to this\u00a0movie, which seemed to have many of the ingredients for success, but I came\u00a0home feeling disappointed.<\/p>\n

Despite the big “SPOILERS” warning in\u00a0my heading, I don’t intend to say much to spoil it. At the\u00a0same time, you’ve\u00a0been warned. If you don’t want any clues, stop reading\u00a0now.<\/p>\n

First, the good. The performances are generally\u00a0of high quality. Yet again, Robert Downey Jr.\u00a0gives us a fine portrayal of\u00a0Tony Stark, showing\u00a0the\u00a0genius superhero’s mix of strength and weakness, of pride and humility. Stark\/Iron Man\u00a0is\u00a0on the verge of a nervous breakdown after the experiences depicted in The Avengers<\/em>, and he is forced to\u00a0battle throughout with his inner demons as well as his (super)human enemies. This comes across well. Likewise, Gwyneth Paltrow is reliable in the role of\u00a0Pepper Potts. They gain our sympathy in every scene, always seeming like the courageous underdogs against dangerous opponents\u00a0who, in fact,\u00a0do them great harm before it’s all over.\u00a0In particular, Guy Pearce\u00a0performs superbly, creating an especially\u00a0terrifying villain.<\/p>\n

I should also commend the way the movie depicts something that has been said before, perhaps\u00a0often,\u00a0about Tony Stark. His real super powers are not the capacities of whatever suit of armour he happens to be wearing. They are his essentially superhuman\u00a0technoscientific intellect, his genius as an improviser and tactician, and his extraordinary\u00a0courage beneath\u00a0the\u00a0self-doubt, and the psychological brittleness. This aspect\u00a0is portrayed clearly and underlined by strong scenes; indeed,\u00a0this alone might make the movie worthwhile for fans of the franchise. It is a bold, yet readily\u00a0recognisable, vision of the character.<\/p>\n

But the movie is too long, too self-indulgent, too dependent on special effects, and at times too confusing. It ends with a huge, extended\u00a0battle scene involving much industrial wreckage, as if we haven’t had enough of those.<\/p>\n

As is well known, Iron Man 3<\/em> features a version of The Mandarin (played by Ben Kingsley), one of Iron Man’s classic villains from the Silver Age comics, almost an equivalent to Magneto, Loki, or Doctor Doom. The Mandarin has always been a difficult opponent for Stark – a genius in his own right\u00a0with superhuman fighting skills (in the comics, his karate blows can shatter steel)\u00a0and a set of rings that effectively gives him a whole array of powers. However,\u00a0what the moviemakers end up doing to the character is a travesty. You’ll see what I mean. The Mandarin was inevitably\u00a0going to be difficult to translate to a\u00a0contemporary live-action movie – he was originally something of a Fu Manchu lookalike, which sends\u00a0immediate suggestions\u00a0of racism. So it was going to be a challenge to create a version that was viable for the big screen at this point in the twenty-first century. I was anticipating\u00a0how\u00a0Iron Man 3<\/em> might rise\u00a0to that challenge… only to see\u00a0a bathetic failure.\u00a0Even if you’re not a fan of the character, you’re in for an anti-climax.<\/p>\n

I really wanted to like Iron Man 3<\/em>. And I did like some things about it, such as the performances from Downey, Paltrow, and\u00a0Pearce. But overall it was a movie that I could have done without. Obviously your mileage may vary. Feel free to disagree with me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I saw Iron Man 3, which was launched in Australia well ahead of the US (as happens with many of the cinema blockbusters\u00a0these days). I was looking forward to this\u00a0movie, which seemed to have many of the ingredients for success, but I came\u00a0home feeling disappointed. Despite the big “SPOILERS” warning in\u00a0my heading, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[136,286,287,288],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-iron-man-3","tag-review","tag-review-of-iron-man-3","tag-the-avengers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}