Iron Man 3 Review

        We are now in Phase 2 of the MCU. Who else to lead the new slate but with Iron Man of course. This would be the first in a lot of them where we see the effects of The Avengers affect the heroes. Naturally, we follow Stark who’s the unofficial mascot of the whole franchise. To me, this is the only good sequel involving just Iron Man. 

1. The Man and his Suits

        Just seeing the trailer, it was going to be a personal one for Tony. Just the shot of seeing his own home being blown up and his suits as well told us that this is going to be a different Iron Man movie than what we are accustomed to seeing. The the film is told via Tony’s narration in a therapeutic way and one can assume that it’s a flashback for Stark. 

        We immediately see him tinkering with his new suit until he gets alerted that a terrorist named The Mandarin is coordinating random bombings. Meanwhile, we see that someone from Stark’s past attempts to partner with his product called Extremis, a revolutionary healing agent. Amid this, Tony is going through a mental psychosis after the battle of New York. 

        The main highlight for this one is seeing Tony going through the motions of what he went through in the last movie. Right down to seeing him not confronting his problem by building his suits. It gets to a point that Pepper calls him out on it and Tony admits that he has a problem and admits that his suits are a part of him. Of course, we have a tease of the suits before the final battle. 

        It’s one thing to have a character attempting to be heroic, and then we have those rare moments of humanity for the character. I’ve only ever seen this with Spider-Man in his trilogy in the 2000s. For here, it’s the first time in the MCU where a character is sort of deconstructed. He has panic attacks and inevitably his own home and suits are taken away from him. It would be a recurring thing within the main Avenger's members solo films where they lose something. I'll bring that up later but it's an observation of what we see in this one. 

        I might as well talk about the deconstruction part. It was a thing I noticed when I watched: this movie, Man of Steel and The Wolverine. All of them to some extent were deconstructions of the main heroes. Since I’ve already talked about Man of Steel a while back, with this one we see if Tony can be a hero without his suits. Since he's a genius and a mechanic, we see him create his own makeshift armory without the need for his suit. 

        People have complaints when he’s in Tennessee and when he meets with the young boy Harley. To me it didn’t really bother me since it helped Tony with his predicament, and it helped progress the overall story. Harley isn’t a standard fan boy but is realistic enough where he keeps it grounded. More so that he reminds Tony of who he is and manages to help him overcome his problem.

        One last thing is that I wanted to mention the director. Shane Black may not be a big name in terms of Hollywood, but he has made an imprint in the action genre. He started as an actor and then turned into a director. This film is a reunion for his first film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with Robert Downey Jr. teaming up with him again for this movie. His main thing is his use of buddies in his films. It’s evident with Tony and Harley and with Rhodey respectively. And I talked about his creation Lethal Weapon before it clicked that he created the series.

2. The Mandarin

        Before the twist that split the fanboys, I thought it was a unique take on a classic Marvel villain. Just the way he appears with the broadcasts made him a seemingly invincible threat. Especially where he interrupted all of the broadcasts and threatened the President, like it was a interesting to where it was all going to lead to. Just with how the broadcasts harkens back to the terror group that was featured in the first Iron Man. 

        Then or course we see who “The Mandarin” really is. I remember when my cousin told me that when the whole thing played out in theaters, some members in the audience left in a huff. Completely flabbergasted and disappointed that they didn’t get an authentic villain representation. With how I saw it, it was hilarious since it was a good red herring that I wasn’t expecting. Mind you, I didn’t read the comics so seeing it how it played out and seeing how butthurt some fans were was hilarious. 

        It was then that it all clicked that the whole thing was representative of the whole film. I’m not the only one to say talk about this interpretation but I would like to credit a YouTube channel for reframing the whole film in a new context. With everything that happened in the film, it’s all in the context of imagery and iconography. 

        What I mean is that with how The Mandarin is played out, it’s just a boogeyman for the real villain of the film, Aldrich Killian. He’s someone from Stark’s past who helped with the healing agent. Since it’s volatile, he used the boogeyman to cover his tracks. It’s clever and it represents the villain in the film. He’s the opposite to Tony where his invention is part of him and is prideful as Stark before his capture. 

3. One-Shots

        This is one thing where I didn’t mention back when talking about the Phase 1 films. They’re not prominent in the grand scheme of the films, but just supplemental material. What they are is just short films that help expand on the movies. Such as seeing Agent Coulson talking with an associate about Stark being a consultant. And seeing where Trevor Slattery who portrayed The Mandarin is up to. It’s one thing where he does get brought up again in the later films. 

4. Overall

        Iron Man 3 completes Tony’s arc in the MCU and is a competently good superhero film.