Iron Man 3 (2013)
Director: Shane Black
Comic Book Authors: Stan Lee, Don Heck, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby
Screenplay: Drew Pierce and Shane Black
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark
Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts
Don Cheadle as Lt.Colonel James Rhodes
Guy Pierce as Aldrich Killian
Rebecca Hall as Maya Hansen
Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin
One can argue that the first two Iron Man films were essentially all about the armor. An essential plot thread is where does Tony Stark stop and where does Iron Man begin? That’s a question that will be answered definitively at the end of this movie, and Tony Stark will answer it.
But like all great tragedies, hubris–excessive pride–plays a significant role. As in Sophocles’ Antigone, when the great allow them selves hubris (excessive pride), they are inevitably punished and often lose all they love. That’s almost the case here, but thankfully, Iron Man 3 is also a tale of redemption, promising greater things to come, which of course means sequels. Considering the amount of money the movie made in release outside America already, it’s a safe bet Iron Man 4 will be gracing theaters in Spring, 2014.
Some pundits are already proclaiming Iron Man 3 to be a better movie than The Avengers. I’m not persuaded. It’s a very good movie, but other than having Iron Man and Pepper Potts (and her shapely, barefoot beautiful legs) in both movies–oh yes, and the obligatory cameo appearance by Marvel head Stan Lee–they’re very different movies. It remains hard to compare apples and oranges. Yet, an essential plot thread of The Avengers was whether Tony Stark had the character to sacrifice himself for a greater cause. The same thread runs through Iron Man 3.
But before delving into this Iron Man outing, let’s take a brief side trip to PJ Media where John Boot tells us “Iron Man 3 Treats Islamist Terror Like a Joke.” Full disclosure: I also publish at PJ Media. Boot writes:
There’s nothing that makes Hollywood more nervous than portraying Islamist terror. As far back as 1994, James Cameron’s True Lies was denounced as racially insensitive for imagining a chillingly plausible Islamist terror threat involving nuclear weapons. Cameron, anticipating accusations of unfairly linking terrorism with Islam and Arabs, took care to try for “balance” by placing an Arab-American character on the good guys’ side (the actor who played him, Grant Heslov, this year won an Oscar as one of the producers of Argo). Yet the advocacy group the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) slammed the film anyway. The hysterical 1998 movie The Siege imagined that, in an overreaction to a terrorist attack, Brooklyn would be placed under martial law and all young Muslim men would be interned in Yankee Stadium. Ridiculous.
Boot is quite right thus far, but he misses the ultimate point, and the necessity and nature of life in the Marvel Universe.
Yet Iron Man 3 is a huge step backward that openly mocks the War on Terror via the villain the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley). With Islamic imagery introducing his regular hijacking of TV airwaves, he denounces America and warns of more terrorist attacks such as the one at a Chinese theater in L.A. in which a human bomb detonates, Palestinian jihadist-style, in a crowd, nearly killing Tony’s bodyguard (Jon Favreau).
The Mandarin (despite being based on a Chinese character in the Iron Man comics) is meant to remind us of Osama Bin Laden and the Islamist brutes who beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl on camera for the crime of being Jewish. The Mandarin does something very much like this in Iron Man 3.
The Mandarin really isn’t an evil bad guy. He’s a drug-addicted actor hired to play one on TV. And the plot really isn’t about Islamist terror, rather the façade of Islamist terror is used by a super villain to hide his true world-dominating intentions and throw the good guys off his track. And that’s the point, you see.
In the real world, Islamist terror is indeed a deadly danger, one we ignore–as Mr. Obama mostly does–at our peril. But when the time comes that America is forced to call Islamists Islamists, when the time comes that political correctness can no longer be afforded, and when America has to, as she has done in the past, rise and save the world, the efforts of very good, highly trained men and women will save the day. There is no Iron Man, no Mighty Thor, no Captain America, just our best–the people we’ve always relied upon–to destroy evil. Thankfully, that’s all that’s required, and I have little doubt that when they’re needed, they’ll rise to the challenge once again.
But in the Marvel Universe, there are larger forces, forces even the Navy SEALS can’t defeat, and for them, we need Iron Man and super heroes like him. While it has been gratifying to see Iron Man flatten Islamist murderers in the past, they’re really no challenge, and surely not enough challenge to sustain a summer blockbuster. Oh no! An evil Islamist dictator has started the timer on an atomic bomb in New York City! Millions will die! Iron Man finds and disarms/throws into space/ etc., etc. the bomb just in the nick of time! Hooray Iron Man! Yawn.
In all good art, there is conflict, conflict that must be confronted and defeated. Where is the conflict if the hero can crush his enemies like bugs with little or no effort? Ah, but infuse the hero with hubris, handicap him due to his own foolishness, and force him to rely on his wits rather than technology, and the elements of risk and danger return.
Robert Downey Jr. plays a Tony Stark wracked with PTSD after the New York City battle. His relationship with the lean, leggy, winsome Pepper Potts–one of the essential elements of her character in The Avengers and this movie, is becoming barefoot whenever possible (not that this is a bad thing)–is on the brink of disaster, as is just about everything else about his self-destructive life. Downey plays the role brilliantly and with his usual wry sense of humor. There is no shortage of good one-liners in this movie, and a good number of unexpected plot twists.
Dialogue in action films is usually noticeable only when it’s particularly bad. Audiences don’t see such films hoping to discover a new Shakespeare, and they won’t. The dialogue in Iron Man 3 is fast paced, often wryly funny, and equally ironic.
In a very real way, the movie is an allegory about overreliance on technology. Stark is forced to rely not only on Don Cheadle in an updated suit of armor left over from Iron Man 2, but learns a few lessons about real world heroism from him. As a matter of fact, he loses the girl, but is miraculously rescued by the girl, who after kicking the real bad guy’s evil hindquarters, delivers a great one liner about violence. Fortunately, it is the bad guy’s torturing of Potts that provides the means of his downfall. That’s one of the plot twists I mentioned. What, you don’t like seeing scantily clad, lean and long legged, barefoot lovelies being tortured by leering baddies? Worry not. It’s Marvel, so there is no overt showing of skin and no steamy sexuality, and she’s as blondely lovely at the end of the movie as at the end. Gwyneth Paltrow really is a good actress, and plays this particular role with energy and style.
In fact, Guy Pierce as Aldrich Killian provides a moral lesson on the nature of evil. To wit: it often has a pretty face. Unsurprisingly, Tony Stark created that pretty face, and the threat that nearly kills him and the woman he loves.
Rebecca Hall plays a beautiful young scientist with whom Stark has a one night stand in the distant past, but through hubris, sets into motion a chain of events that nearly ends in fiery disaster for Stark, Potts, the President of the United States, and the world in general. And that’s after she shows up on Stark’s doorstep.
Let’s see, what else…oh yes! There’s the plucky, sympathetic and smart young boy that helps Stark when he most needs it, and gets mostly attitude–at first–from Stark. The Vice President of the United States is a traitor–but he did it for love. Air Force One blows up in mid-air, but that’s just a background shot. We’re so busy with a related heroic action sequence we don’t really care, and much, much more.
The movie is a visual feast. The special effects are of the seamless quality we’ve come to expect in Marvel movies, yet the movie focuses more on character development than spectacle, and it brings it off. We really do care about Stark and Potts and Cheadle and look forward to seeing them again. They’re good guys in the best tradition of American movie good guys.
Let’s consider Boot’s conclusion:
Am I asking too much of a comic book movie? Actually, I’m asking very little. The Dark Knight films proved that a superhero series can reflect serious real-world issues in an adult way, to a large and appreciative audience. Most blockbuster movies are, of course, lightweight and meaningless. But though the first two Iron Man films, especially the second one, engaged with the real world in an interesting way, the third entry is worse than silly: It’s frivolous. With respect to the War on Terror, it’s a travesty.
Actually, Boot is asking too much, and it’s not his to ask. This is not a movie about the existential military/political threat of our time. It’s a movie about evil, even that within us. Remember Iron Man 2: an evil genius wielding electrified whips that slice a formula one car in half, who tries to wreak vengeance on Tony Stark for imagined grievances against his father Howard Stark. That’s the real world and significant issues?
The real conflict in Iron Man 3 is internal. It is on that level that hubris, nemesis, a fall, growth, and finally, redemption take place. It’s a story as old as the oral tradition, but told with all of the sparkling tools of contemporary film making. It was never about Islamic terrorism, nor does it treat that topic frivolously. Not every serious movie in 2013 is obligated to say something about that battle for civilization. Sometimes, it’s enough that really bad guys are defeated by really good guys, particularly when really good guys are actually the underdogs. In the best movies, we can see something of ourselves in the hero, or at least something of what we want to believe we could be, given the right circumstances and the love of a good woman.
Who is Tony Stark going to be when the movie ends? As it turns out, a better–man. You’ll see.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
No, that never happened, except in the rather specialised sense that a lion saves a calf from a jackal by frightening it off. On the one hand, U.S. efforts at most contributed against limited threats (it never saved eastern Europe at all in the Second World War, and helped more with supplies than anything else in western Europe right up until D-Day – Churchill notes that there were more Commonwealth than U.S. forces in action clear until then – and it did try to pass off fiat liberation money in France until De Gaulle repudiated it; and, of course, its contribution to the First World War was immaterial until after victory was assured anyway, largely because Woodrow Wilson refused to allow troops to join existing units but insisted on waiting to form an A.E.F. with its own sector). On the other hand, all post-war U.S. efforts came with huge strings attached, so that nobody else ever got their previous position restored; in particular, the U.S.A. pulled the rug out from under the European maritime empires (most visibly the Dutch) and created many dependent puppets in what came after. That is saving, but only of a special sort. Think of the Star Trek non-intervention rule that somehow always turned up exceptions that all leaned one way.
The U.S.A. has never, ever made the world a better place for anyone else. At best it has headed off even worse, but it always made sure things worked out better still for itself and it never let others recover their wealth and strength (hint: cui bono when the C.I.A. overthrew Mossadegh? not Britain’s oil interests as much as U.S. ones). I agree with De Gaulle’s assessment of these things.
Unfortunately for you, you don’t have any backup, nor has anything you said make sense. Please give out your supporting documentation in the form of urls.
Dear P.M. Lawrence:
Ah, I see. There was no lend/lease program that armed England in her darkest hour then? And of course you know Eastern Europe fell under Soviet influence by treaty? I notice you don’t mention that the US did save Western Europe and the Pacific, and then implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild them all? Strings attached? Hey, it’s our money; we get to have some say about how it’s spent, don’t we? We’ve never made the world better for anyone? Come now. You know better.
America doesn’t provide untold billions in foreign aid even today? George W. Bush didn’t provide unprecedented resources to improve the health of Africans? Ronald Reagan didn’t win the Cold War, and destroying the Soviet Empire wasn’t a good thing? I suspect more than a few Easter Europeans might have something to say about that.
I could go on and one, but I trust you get the point. Oh, did you have something to say about the movie?
Glad I saw the movie before reading your review. Too many spoilers, I hope the plot of the next movie doesn’t involve someone from Stark’s past with a grudge against him specifically. Since that’s been done three times now, and frankly being forced to save one’s own ass isn’t particularly heroic no matter how many get saved as well.
Good movie, not a great movie.
After disagreeing so profoundly with your negative opinion of “Oblivion” I might be tempted to ignore your recommendation of Ironman III. My son and his girlfriend saw Ironman III over the weekend and were unimpressed. However; you make an excellent case that Ironman III addresses some complex issue of grace and redemption that young adults might not appreciate. The moral issues that you describe Tony Stark contending with are a logical extension of the issue of mortality that he was struggling with in Ironman II.
The first two Ironman movies resonated with me because I got my first cardiac pacemaker at age 40. The parallels with the fusion arc reactor are obvious. Ironman II was released just as I was finally diagnosed with a displaced Cardiac Pacemaker lead that had detached from the implant site in my left Ventrical, pulled up into my left atrium, drilled itsway through the septum of my heart into my right ventricle then dropped down into my right ventricle to reimplant itself close enough to the original implant site that it functioned well enough to remain undetected for several years until it triggered a massive blood clot that nearly killed me. Obviously; the plot element of the fusion arc reactor turning out to be toxic was an obvious metaphor for me.
I look forward to seeing Ironman III.
Dear Knuckledraggingwino:
Glad to hear you got the wiring sorted out properly. Being a critic is always interesting, but I realize that all art is subject to multiple interpretations and no one has a monopoly on absolute insight about any work of art. Iron Man 3 is not art destined to be appreciated over the centuries, but its excellent entertainment that has embedded messages that go beyond mere entertainment. That’s always worthwhile. I suspect you’ll enjoy it.
Thanks for commenting!
The flaws in the wiring have been detected but not corrected. While there are procedures for removing displaced or broken pacemaker leads, these procedures havenever been attempted for a lead that has perforated the septum. The risk oxblood clots snow being mitigated by anticoagulants, but they create an extreme risk of dying from what should be minor trauma. Eventually; the pacemaker lead will kill me but attempting to remove it would probably kill me sooner rather than later.
Mike, late to the game on this post, but I can’t wait to read what you have to say about the new Star Trek movie.
Dear Casey Tompkins:
I’ve been otherwise engaged the last week, but I’ll see the movie before this weekend is out and get a post up.
After seeing Ironman III, I can’t resist the urge to necropost.
Thank you for the recommendation. My one complaint is that Pepper Potts was not barefoot and barelegged as often in the movie as your review led me to believe. Perhaps you were recalling scenes from The Avengers? Perhaps in Ironman IV Pepper Potts will be barefoot, bare legged and pregnant?
I didn’t think that this movie trivialized the war on terror, it merely addresses the fact that there are villains who will exploit the fear of terrorism for their own political benefit. This element of Ironman III is reminscent of a US President who shamelessly exploits the perception that he killed Osama Bin Laden to get reelected when in fact he and his Secretary of State have been supporting the same terrorists who we’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to seize power in Tunisia, Algerial, Lybia and Iraq. Can you imagine Hollywood having the imagination to make movie about a President who is so villainous that he supplied the Stinger II, shoulder launched SAMs to terrorists who then used them to shoot down a helicopter transporting the same Navy SEALs who killed Bin Laden and will use them to shoot down scores of civilian airliners some day?
The surprising plot twist about who the real villain resonates with me because of my step family. I can’t imagine Hollywood making a movie about people who presume that they should be honored for adopting my brother and I when in fact we were orphans only because our adoptive family’s arrogance, selfishness, avarice and mindless greed killed our parents and they adoptedusto retain possession of the embezzled property.
Of course Ironman III resonated with me primarily because of the recurring theme of mortality resulting from cardiac issues. The final resolution of Tony Stark’s cardiac issues encourages me to hope that my own wiring will be sorted out.
Pingback: Movie Review: Thor: The Dark World (2013) | Stately McDaniel Manor