Falling down never felt so good by Travis
Beware Spoiler Alert.
This is a movie about the process of adapting to the changes in life when things happen beyond our understanding. Two and half hours of character development, but did it have to happen this way? This wasn’t a bad movie, on many levels it was very enjoyable, but was it an Iron Man movie? No it was not, maybe it should have been called “Tony Stark – The Man behind the Iron Mask.” It was truly about Tony. As I watched I realized it was not the movie I wanted to see. Although I want to say I am definitely not going to ask for my money back. It just is not what I expected and hoped for.
I was looking for the larger than life bad guy in the Mandarin, which is why I thought they picked the great Ben Kingsley. Although, the buildup of the human bombs investigation and the terrorist videos appeared legitimate, I felt it was a complete failure in the movie when we found out he was just a drunk actor and the real bad guy was another corporate lackey. Come on Marvel, really? I was encouraged with the pre-movie trailer plot in fact I was ready for serious terrorist threat and the Mandarin with the power of the Makluan rings could have been it. The Mandarin is a classic Iron Man villain with great Marvel history. The writers could have had a great story here but decided to not take the character seriously, what a shame.
Iron Man 3 is a good movie, but with most Marvel films I can’t wait to see again on DVD or Blu Ray, this one once may be enough. If this was your first Marvel Movie watch the other Iron Man and The Avengers movies then you appreciate how good they are, it will help you to get the full understanding of the characters. There was some intriguing developments in the movie involving Pepper and the romance between Tony and her. My disappointment in the movie was less of Iron Man, more of Tony and the under use of the great villain the Mandarin. Ben Kingsley was so convincing that when Tony confronts him I felt challenged right alongside of Tony Stark as he tried to wrap his head around an actor playing the Mandarin. At that point in the movie I hoped they were trying to trick us and really the Mandarin was playing an actor who was playing the Mandarin and that the end credits it would show us the Mandarin as his minions break him out of Jail. The acting was great they really brought the characters to life I cared about everyone from the mom whose son was the first human bomb all the way up to the villainous Guy Pearce, who was a great villain. I kept waiting for the story direction to change but was left by it’s spectacular lack of Iron Man in suit. Except for the huge destruction of all the Iron Man suits at the end this was movie was “Tony Stark – The Man behind the Iron Mask.” If that is your cup of tea, Enjoy!
Good report I think it was good to see Tony challenged and the Mandarin Ben Kingsley was funny. What I did not like was Pepper the Super Hero?