What
Ignore the idea of this film being in 3D as somehow adding anything additional for your admission fee to the fore – it doesn’t. Merely take it at face value as a highly enjoyable character exploration of one of Marvel’s best loved superheroes with a lot more eccentricity, bags of humour and a hint of Warren Ellis’ famous Extremis comic book mini-series thrown in.
After facing the alien invasion with his fellow Avengers, Stark (Robert Downey Jr) is back to his confident and arrogant self, only cracks are beginning to appear in his cool façade. Not only has the man who has everything started to suffer from panic attacks in public, but he’s also screwing up in his work, research and his love life, leaving despairing partner Miss Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) looking after business and pleasure. When Potts is exposed to the power of DNA-altering science from new villain Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), while a global terrorist called The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) threatens further bombings via chilling TV broadcasts, Stark lays down the metal gauntlet and comes out fighting as Iron Man once more.
The thrill felt in 2008 at the first Iron Man film is back, after the fan-boy centric sequel in 2010 that required previous knowledge of the first as well as details about the comic novel character to fully appreciate its pointers and in-jokes. Admittedly, apart from needing to know the ending of The Avengers film, Black and team have certainly opened up the franchise with this third film, combining big-action moves and sci-fi wizardry by injecting lots of nods to previous big-screen hits, including Lethal Weapon and Terminator. Extremis fans finally get to see the cyborg technology in the making, too.
On the action front, Black fondly replicates his winning Lethal Weapon 2 crime-busting duo, Riggs and Murtaugh, when Stark and James Rhodes – aka War Machine, solidly played by Don Cheadle – pair up for the showdown with the bad guys on a freight ship. This CGI-heavy climax also transforms a lacklustre Potts from Stark’s arm candy into a strong character with potential all of her own.
Talking of comedy – of which this film is more abundant in than before, stay put until the very end of the credits for one last grin, too. Black nicely gives us lighter and darker moments, all wrapped up in one satisfactory standalone Iron Man story that will endear more to the Marvel magic of this metal-clad crusader, as he openly dissembles the parts that make him, whilst stirring our curiosity about the dawn of a new age of sci-fi terror.
[Rating:4/5]