Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Guy Pearce, Gwyneth Paltrow
At long last recognised as a hero both for his deeds on his
own and as a part of a league of similar individuals known as The Avengers
Initiative, Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) spends his free time developing the
technology he uses to fight the force of evil, whilst also helping to develop
similar technology for the government. However, Stark’s adventures are starting
to catch up with him and when a mysterious terrorist simply known as ‘The
Mandarin’ (Sir Ben Kingsley) shows up, weaponising a new form of experimental
technology, Stark must struggle to overcome his personal demons.
As arguably the most popular facet of Marvel’s successful
and far-reaching Avengers series of superheroes in film, Iron Man 3 has some
rather steep expectations to live up to. Whilst the first Iron Man film
released in 2008 was a great superhero film in its own right, its 2010 follow
up, Iron Man 2 was, whilst not terrible, fairly unmemorable but the 2012 film,
The Avengers (known as Avengers Assemble in the UK) redeemed the good qualities
of Iron Man. As for this film, there are some definite flaws in the material
with much of the plot being fairly predictable (especially a sub-plot involving
an old flame of Stark’s) and the characters not feeling as original as they
used to. Most notably Tony Stark, whose enjoyably dry humour has become a
little diluted (a side-effect of him changing from cheeky anti-hero to a
completely noble hero), whilst his artificial intelligence assistant, Jarvis
(voiced by Paul Bettany) has become a largely C-3PO-esque creation whilst Andy
Samberg makes an almost pointless early appearance in the film. However, the
real bright spot in characters is The Mandarin who exudes an exoticism owing to
the casting of Indian-British actor Sir Ben Kingsley (who has played roles
ranging from Parsi-Indian Mahatma Gandhi in Gandhi (1981) to the Jewish-Polish
Itzahk Stern in Schindler’s List (1993)). Though initially flat, a mid-story
revelation about his character is a stroke of genius and makes him far more
entertaining. The action sequences also thrill with some interesting ideas,
even if they’re overdone in the film’s stretched finale and the visuals are
equally impressive, whilst fortunately not pandering too much to the 3D
presentation. Overall, this is no classic but has some moments of
entertainment.
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