Iron Man 3 – Film Review

Plagued with worry and insomnia since saving New York from destruction, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), now, is more dependent on the suits that give him his Iron Man persona — so much so that every aspect of his life is affected, including his relationship with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). After a malevolent enemy known as the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) reduces his personal world to rubble, Tony must rely solely on instinct and ingenuity to avenge his losses and protect the people he loves.

When it comes to the Iron Man trilogy of films within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), you typically hear the first two films being brought up the most, and it’s always confused me. The first-ever Iron Man kicked off the MCU and featured Robert Downey Jr. in a return to form, delivering a career-defining performance, and one that shaped the superhero genre as we know it.

The second Iron Man gets brought up in conversations mainly because it made the amazing decision to introduce Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) to the MCU, but other people also like to talk about the brief introduction of Mickey Rourke‘s Whiplash.

Shane Black‘s Iron Man 3 rarely gets talked about and I don’t know why because, in all honesty, it’s my favorite of the three. Sure, the first one was definitely the most influential, and without it, we quite simply would not have the MCU today, but in terms of acting, action, humor, heart, and scale, Iron Man 3 has it all.

The people that do talk about this film tend to focus on the twist that (spoiler alert) the villainous Mandarin is not actually the Mandarin at all. He’s just a guy named Trevor Slattery who is just an actor who is hired by Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) to try to terrify the world as well as Tony Stark.

Before the release of Iron Man 3, many fans were extremely excited to see the evil-doer brought to life on the big screen, and who better than Ben Kingsley to portray such a menacing and imposing threat? They were incredibly disappointed with the twist, to say the least. Surprisingly enough, the first time I saw this movie, I thought the twist was amazing and I was shocked to learn that almost everybody hated it.

Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

For the first half of the film, the Mandarin is set up as the main villain of the movie – a terrorist who plans to cause mass destruction and inject fear into the hearts of all Americans, while Aldrich Killian serves as a sort of side villain during the duration of the film. Tony Stark finally finds him later on in the film. The huge fight is going to happen… but no. It’s an actor.

Don’t get me wrong, I can definitely understand why this twist made so many people angry, but even still to this day on my rewatch, I thought the twist was kind of hilarious and subversive. It’s not the most clever twist in the world and it absolutely would’ve been more fun had Tony Stark gone toe-to-toe with the actual Mandarin, but, after all, this is a Shane Black movie. He’s kind of known for being a comedic director and so the choice doesn’t really shock me.

And that’s one of the main things I adore about Iron Man 3 – it manages to be a genuinely hilarious film with tons of great jokes sprinkled throughout, but at its core, it has a massive beating heart and is full of earned emotions. One minute you’ll be laughing at one of Black’s witty jokes and then the next, you’ll be struggling to hold back tears.

This movie takes place after the events of The Avengers, and the entire battle of New York City against Loki and his alien army of the Chitauri seriously took a toll against Stark. I absolutely love how Iron Man 3 shows us how Tony deals with the repercussions of that massive fight and tells us that just because superheroes are strong and usually save the day, doesn’t mean they can’t suffer from PTSD from these battles.

Tony finds it increasingly difficult to sleep at night, tossing and turning even if he does feel tired. And when he does eventually fall asleep, he is awakened not long after by a horrific nightmare, drenched in sweat and hyperventilating. This is the kind of thing that you almost never see in comic book movies and it’s always confused me as to why not.

After all, superheroes are still people and they would suffer from the trauma of these galactic battles, but Iron Man 3 is one of the only comic book films that depicts this – and boy does it depict it well. You genuinely feel for Tony throughout the entire movie and it’s clear that his character gets some incredible development here that will shape who he is as a person from this film onward.

At times the movie can suffer from computer-generated imagery overload and it definitely feels super long for an Iron Man movie at two hours and eleven minutes in length, but all in all, Iron Man 3 is a rare type of superhero movie and quite honestly, one that probably wouldn’t get made today which is quite interesting considering its not even ten years old yet. Even the fact that it’s eight years old makes me feel ancient. Time flies by when you’re having fun.