You know what I abseloutley despise with all my black heart about popular film franchises? That's right...sequels that get gradually worse and worse as the series gets longer and its popularity becomes far bigger (turn that into a euthanism and I'll force you into a tag-team wrestling match against Hulk Hogan and The Rock with Justin Beiber as your partner). Now this is apparent with many series's and has always been the case with movie series' that have a cult following and/or grand armee' of fans such as the Die Hard, Star Wars and Twilight series's (admittedly the Twilight series has always been as good-quality as a skyscraper made out of PVC glue and rotten, sodden garlic baguettes). But if there is anything I hate more than this, it is a movie that has been hyped up for so long like a heavily-baked poo and then proves to be so disappointing because of one or two major features that the cons of said film largely overshadow those good factors that, by all rights, should be shining through.
Case in point, Iron Man 3. Now I feel really bad giving this film a load of shtick but the thing is that it deserves it. I feel really bad for doing it because there are allot of talented people involved in the making of this film such as the legendary Robert Downey JR playing the dual part of Iron Man and Tony Stark. Furthermore, when I initially came out of the cinema after having watched this film I thought it was really good, so good in fact that I initially believed it to be even better than Iron Man 2. However, a week later and with notable hindsight knowledge and thought it is pretty clear to me now that this film is; A - Not as good as Iron Man 2, B - really quite disappointing and C - So bad in particular regards that all the good things in this film are largely overshadowed.
Now before I get into this dissapointment-flavoured smoothie I must explain the plot. Following off from the events of the much-acclaimed Avengers Assemble, we find that the much-loved business man Tony Stark (Robert Downey JR) who leads a public double life as the technology-enhanced super hero Iron Man is leading a relatively common life (as common as the life of an extremely eccentric multi-millionaire can be) but is constantly being plagued by anxiety attacks on account of the tremendous battering and alien attacks he had to take on in Avengers Assemble. As if that isn't bad enough however, it seems that there are a wave of bomb attacks wrecking the USA and Tony is the only one who can tackle the problem but just as he is about to attempt this while at the same time trying to keep his relationship with his girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) on track his house is bombed to dust. And as if to make matters worse, Tony is separated from the one person he loves and is hundreds of miles away with a prototype Iron Man suit that doesn't work and still has to conduct his investigation while at the same time being attacked by a force of super-soldier assassins that have been injected with a revolutionary serum called Extremis. On top of this, he also has to hunt down a known-terrorist called the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) who is supposedly carrying out these raids and is supported by a shady weapons company and also find out what the bad guy's plot is and how it involves the president of the United States of America. Thus begins Tony Stark's (aka Iron Man's) adventure of self-reliance, self-discovery and stupid plot holes.
Now taking that into account it could be said that this sounds like an action-packed plot but that is where Iron Man 3 stumbles greatly. Even taking into account the 2 hours and 10 minutes running time of the film (probably half an hour more if you have to sit through all those forsaken adverts at the cinema), the plot and all the aforementioned action-packed events and sub-plots blasting around Downey's anxiety-riddled millionaire are oddly cramped and feel rushed despite the films' hefty running time. Perhaps it isn't the running time however but rather the sheer Ribena-gargling, toilet-flushing, eye-bursting, brain-achingly large number of plots, side-plots and sub-plots that are chaotically mixing all together. And this is the aforementioned area where Iron Man 3 lets itself down in such a substantial way that it overshadows all the good bits and bobs about the rest of the film. I mean come the bloody hell on man! How confusing do you have to make things look when your film is a comic book film about an eccentric American who flies around in robot suits fighting cartoony bad guys? I mean come on! The first two Iron Man films were pretty much about the same self-discovery Tony Stark has to take (albeit on increasingly dangerous and important levels) in his battle against anxiety, self-arrogance and said cartoonishly-whacky baddies, and they were so easy to follow! This film makes the 1999 disastrously-bad Ukrainian war/history/adventure film With Fire and Sword look as simple as an episode of Thomas the Tank-engine.
Now that is the film's main weakness but there are others which are so jarring they make my piss turn solid with hatred and exasperation. The most eye-rollingly, disappointingly obvious one is how the main villain besides the evil Mandarin is revealed...in the first 15 minutes just by his attitude. HOLY SHIT. That is pretty freaking bad. But taking this into account, there was also another weakness in the film that jarred against me even more. Now I'm just going to point this out as plainly as I can but for the rest of this paragraph I must issue A SPOILER WARNING! Now as we reach the film's climax, Tony claims that he wants to live a normal life with his under-emphasised girlfriend Pepper and has the shrapnel that has been embedded in his chest since the first Iron Man by a rocket blast removed through surgery so that he does not have to have the little blue power generator in his chest preventing the shrapnel entering his heart. ....WHY...DIDN'T...HE...DO...THAT...IN...THE...FIRST...PLACE!!?!?!??!?. I mean seriously? That shrapnel could've killed the guy and the Iron Man suit works just fine in the Marvel comics without it! Furthermore, in the second Iron Man, the generator in Tony's chest is killing him paradoxically slowly, thus, removing the shrapnel from his chest and the generator in turn so late in the series just makes all the emotional drama and gravitas of Tony having said generator in his chest in the past two films TOTALLY POINTLESS! And as if to add kick to the balls to punch in the teeth, the way in which you see the Extremis soldiers being killed is really incoherent as one minute you seem them taking petrol-station explosions and gunshots and being totally fine while the next minute they're being taken out by the same ordinary guns and Iron Man's puny repulsor rays. Yeah look, I personally think the Silver Surfer is more powerful and he's infused with the power of the cosmos, not relying on a robot suit that is prone to malfunction.
Now as I said before, I think there are some good parts to this film and I feel bad therefore for having railed on the film as a whole in such a manner. First off, the idea that Tony has to basically fight back against the Extremis-enhanced assassins by just making up stuff and highly rudimentary gadgets as he goes along for most of the film gives the self-discovery side of the film great gravitas and suspense. Secondly, the models of Iron Man suits that appear in this film are so varied and glorious in all their splendour and kick-assery that you feel like a 5-year old let loose in the pic 'n' mix isle at Sainsbury's. Furthermore, the action despite all the confused plots about Extremis, Tony's completely token and run-of-the-mill evil ex-girlfriend and the cons of Americanised versions of non-American cultures is very well filmed and is something that director and screenplay-writer Shane Black can truly be proud of.
In conclusion, I would maybe recommend this film if you are a big fan of the Marvel films, particularly the Iron Man ones, so far but otherwise...nah. It feels like a really big let-down just like all the other third or fourth sequels to series's that need a little extra boost or have simply run their course and that is where the film really fails. Lots of people and critics have been stating that Iron Man 3 is better than the notably-debated Iron Man 2 but I would disagree with them. Iron Man 3 is the Iron Man series's weak point by far and it shows particularly in the film's confusing plot and other cons blot out the action and character development all the actors and the good Mr Black have so clearly worked hard upon.
Summary: see this film if you really feel motivated but don't expect a re-tread of Iron Man.
Stay tuned and keep happy.
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