The third iteration of the Iron Man franchise pits Tony Stark against his long time comic book nemesis, The Mandarin. Ben Kingsly (Shutter Island) does a drastic new take on The Mandarin, which will definitely keep audiences guessing (and will really shock some long time comic fans). Originally Shane Black (Director/Writer) was reluctant to use this character due to the stereotypes that he had represented in the comics, but Black has found a fantastic way to bring this character to the big screen as a major terrorist threat. Why would Tony be involved with fighting a terrorist? Well that is part of the beauty of the film. Someone close to Tony is injured during a Mandarin attack, and Stark throws down the gauntlet in retaliation. Game on.

Tony also has to deal with the return of Aldrich Killian (Guy Pierce – Sherlock Holmes), the creator of Advanced Idea Mechanics (sorry comic fans…no yellow Bee Keeper suits in this movie). Killian had met Stark years ago and had tried to get him involved with his think tank. While Stark declined the offer, his colleague, Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall – The Town) decided to take Killian up on the offer in order to further the development of a new bio-technology she created called “Extremis”.

During the course of the story, Tony finds himself tracking down a connection to The Mandarin in Tennessee of all places (I know it is random…just go with it). While waiting for his new armor to recharge, he reluctantly teams up with a 10-year-old named Harley Keener (Ty Simpkins – Private Practice), who proves to be one of the best foils for RDJ in the entire film. I don’t want to give much of this plot point away, but I do want to commend the casting director for selecting Simpkins for this role. These two actors played off each other beautifully, especially when the addition of this child role in the film could have been an utter disaster.

So what is Tony’s supporting cast doing during all of this? Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow – The Avengers) is still running Stark Industries, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau – Former Iron Man Director) is now the Head of Security (because everyone laughed at him being Iron Man’s body guard), and Rhodey (Don Cheadle – Ocean’s 11) has recently had his armor upgraded by Killian and rebranded as “Iron Patriot”. All three of these cast members get a lot of time to shine in this story, which is pretty impressive considering all that is going on for Stark himself. Pepper gets in on the action and gets to suit up briefly (as spoiled in the commercials and trailers). Happy plays a pretty active role in the movie (and we learn that he has an addiction to a certain BBC show). Rhodey gets a snazzy paint job, but I am pretty sure that he doesn’t fire a single shot while in the armor…which is pretty ironic considering he was War Machine.

Iron Man 3 has some really great moments, but it also has a few things going against it. The most disappointing factor wasn’t even in the movie itself, it was the fact that the trailers gave away too damn much. There are two big moments in the movie, the Air Force One rescue, and the Army of Iron Men coming to save the day. If these moments had been saved as true reveals in the film, I guarantee you that the audience would have been cheering and jumping up and down with excitement. Due to these moments being spoiled months in advance, I felt like the reaction from the audience was minimal at best.

The other issue was that people in the theater forgot what the title of the film was. To be blunt, Iron Man 3 is NOT Avengers 2. Although it takes place following the events of that story, don’t expect Tony to just call up all of his friends every time something goes wrong. That isn’t how it works in the Iron Man comics, and it is the same case for the movie. Iron Man can handle his own battles (or at the very least will get any necessary help from his own supporting cast). It will be very hard for some viewers to remember this fact when watching this latest Marvel film, but just try to focus on the fact that Tony was having his own stories before The Avengers came along. We all want the next The Avengers installment, but this will not be it. So just think back on how great the first Iron Man was, forget about the second one (aka Avengers: The Prequel) and just be excited for the fact that this was a great follow up for Tony Stark.

We have heard many rumors that this might be Robert Downey Jr’s last outing as Iron Man on the big screen, and I think that if actually is the case, then this was a damn good way to wrap up this current story arc. Iron Man 3 was a fantastic way to take Stark out of his element and do something totally new to grow the character. The Tony Stark that we saw in Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not the same character we end this film with, and I think that is a testament to the work of both Shane Black and RDJ.

One final note, Iron Man 3 has an epic credit sequence that is a throw back to the 1960s. I cannot over emphasize how much I enjoyed this addition to the film, which provides a nice bookend to the current installments of the franchise.

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Iron Man 3 – 4.5 out of 5 times that Tony gets a new suit of armor.

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