Iron Man 3 Revisited!

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 In anticipation of the next installment of 'Phase 2' of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I thought I would revisit the first film in that cycle. Also check out my thoughts on the last installment Thor: The Dark World  here
 and my predictions for The Winter Soldier here 

 At first, I was somewhat disappointed with Iron Man 3 but, every time I re-watch it, I end up liking it a little bit more.  I finally realized that my problem was that I had been trying to view it as a stand alone movie; it's not.  When viewed in the context of, not only the first two films, but the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe (which now includes Agents of SHIELD) it works much better.

This was not meant to be a stand alone work or even the latest installment of a film franchise; it is the final 3 episode story arc of Iron Man season one (or, for you anglophiles, and probably a bit more accurately, series one). The movie even breaks up pretty much evenly into three 40-45 minute segments; you can pretty much pinpoint where the 'To be continued....' would have come up at the end of the first two episodes.Granted, this is basically a three-act structure which is not at all unusual for a big budget action movie (or any movie) to follow, however, the more in-depth exploration of the character of Tony Stark and the plot's dependence on the developments from other films in the MCU makes it feel like it belongs part of a larger whole as well.

The first 'episode' sets up the events that are to follow and sets the stage for the resolution of the final act.  In fact, if we are now to consider Iron Man the first story arc in this series, then the flashback of a pre-Iron Man Tony Stark at the beginning of the film is an appropriate callback that allows the final story arc to bookend nicely with the first.  Also, we have Tony Stark dealing with the fall out from the previous story arc which would have, of course, been The Avengers.

Having had to truly risk his own life for the first time, he has become traumatized.  He is suffering from a sort of PTSD and it all goes back to a conversation he has with Captain America in The Avengers:

Captain America:  You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.

Tony Stark: I think I would just cut the wire.

However, at the end of The Avengers Tony finds himself, for the first time, unable to "cut the wire"; if he wants to be the hero, he has to lay down his own life.  He couldn't outsmart the situation. At the start of Iron Man 3, we learn that he has been busy trying to make it so that he never finds himself in this situation again.

He has been building armor, after armor, suitable for every imaginable scenario so that he never finds himself without a way out again.  In fact, his latest project, the Mark 42, is a direct response to the dilemma of The Avengers; he doesn't even need to be in the suit to control it. Thus, he can save the day without having to actually put his own life on the line. However, the problem with this is that he has become too dependent on his armor; he retreats into it whenever he feels the least bit insecure.

What is great about the Marvel heroes, not just in the movies but in the comics as well, is that it's always about the guy underneath the mask not the mask itself.  Iron Man 2 demonstrated this by showing us that Tony Stark might not be the best guy to be in the suit--- at least in objective terms--- but, for better or worse, he is the guy in the suit and Iron Man is more than just the suit.  However, it would seem, that in Iron Man 3 Tony seems to have forgotten this. This paves the way for the second act of the film where Tony finds himself unable to use, not only his suits, but any of his sizable resources.

The second 'episode' in this story arc is, perhaps, the most successful.  If we are viewing it as a single 'episode' of the Iron Man series, it might be my favorite episode. Also, it would probably  be titled simply, "The Mechanic".  In it, Tony must learn to function without a suit and most of his technology; hell, the best watch he can conjure is a child's Dora the Explorer watch.  He must learn to remember that what makes him Iron Man is not his suit or even his resources but his brain. He is "the Mechanic"; he can always build.  That is his gift.  That is his 'super-power'.

Note: I would be remiss if I didn't mention the relationship with the kid in the second act.  Not only does it make for some of the funniest exchanges in the film, but it is handled in a way that manages to both have heart and avoid being overly sentimental.  Not an easy combination to pull of in this type of film.

The final act has always been the most problematic for me but, the more I watch it, the more I end up liking it. After a second act which saw Iron Man out of his armor, you would expect the final act to consist of Tony and Rhodey suited up and fighting side by side, right?  Yet, Tony still spends most of the final act out of the armor.  Oh, sure, we see a lot of armor--- about 40 different suits to be exact--- but Tony spends very little time in them. The final action sequence involves him jumping from one suit to the next without spending much time in any of them with most being controlled remotely by JARVIS.

While I still feel the ending is a bit overblown in terms of the action (Director, Shane Black, is perhaps best known for scripting the original Lethal Weapon and developed a reputation in the late 80s and early 90s for writing big-budget action scripts that were fun to read; particularly if you were a coked up studio exec.... and some moments--- James Rhodes rolling and jumping through a glass window, guns blazing; the final showdown at 'the docks'--- feel a bit cliche), it actually manages to distinguish itself from the previous Iron Man movies.

Most of the solo Marvel films have followed a similar approach for the final act:  the hero has a final showdown with an evil counterpart--- in both the first two Iron Man films and Captain America: The First Avenger these counterparts are, quite literally, evil versions of the protagonist: The Red Skull is a product of the same formula that produced Cap and both the Iron Monger and Whiplash are variations of Iron Man's own suit.  If the 3rd film had Stark, yet again, going mano a mano with another guy in a suit of armor, it would have been redundant.

In Aldrich Killian, we have a very different kind of villain; yet, one who still serves as reflection of sorts for Stark.  Killian is another brilliant mind but, unlike Stark who hides inside a suit of armor, he has transformed himself, his very body, into a weapon.  As the Extremis formula gives him a very different set of powers, it requires a very different solution. Tony can't just go armor to armor; he has to find a different solution.

That solution takes the form of the Mark 42 armor and it's unique ability to shift, piece by piece, to someone other than Stark.  In the film's climactic moment, the Mark 42, believed to be destroyed, enters the fray late.  The audience is set up to believe that this will finally be the moment that the glitchy armor proves itself but, instead of triumphantly merging with Tony, it crashes and, once again, falls to pieces.  It is actually unclear whether this was a legitimate malfunction or a misdirection play by Stark since his next move is to have the armor attach itself to Killian before self-destructing.  Once again, it is Tony's mind that saves the day--- the technology itself isn't important, it's knowing how to use it (it is also worth noting that it is a powered up Pepper Potts who, ultimately, finishes of Killian).

A final word on The Mandarin; I loved the twist!  Kingsley was brilliant! Mandarin is a fairly problematic character to bring into the 21st century anyway; he's very much a relic of "yellow terror" fears from the Cold War.  Besides, if you weren't happy with what the film did with him, the latest Marvel One-Shot with the Thor: The Dark World DVD drops some hints that there might be more to "The Mandarin" than we are seeing here (after all, the '10 Rings' was a legitimate terrorist organization in the first film).