On the Big Screen: IRON MAN THREE (2013)

 

Spoiler-free summary: Shane Black's superhero picture is a stand-alone sequel that surprisingly does nothing to begin setting up the next Avengers picture, but that's not really a problem for an entertainingly twisty picture that takes an important step forward in portraying superhero action on film. Iron Man Three (the numeral is spelled out during the end credits) is a self-aware exercise in cliches and sometimes too cute about it for its own good, but it gets by on the charisma of its stars and versatile work by Ben Kingsley. Strangely, the picture at times seems to have more to say about The Dark Knight Rises than it does about The Avengers, but more about that below, with spoilers for the unwary...

It was not cause for confidence to learn that the Iron Man franchise had been handed over -- former director Jon Favreau remains in front of the camera as Tony Stark's henchman Happy Hogan -- to the writer of Last Action Hero, but in the "what have you done for us lately" department Shane Black is better known these days, at least in movie circles, as the auteur of the 2005 film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I haven't seen that picture but it's well regarded by many and a milestone in the comeback of Robert Downey Jr. A real or presumed affinity between actor and auteur got Black the Iron Man gig, and at a bare minimum he's improved on Favreau's second picture. Iron Man 2 was really little more than half a movie, and nearly worthless after the fight scene at the Monte Carlo Grand Prix. It suffered from lackluster villains, though Mickey Rourke started strong and projected a novel sort of menace in the race track scene. Its failure of imagination came at the end, when someone decided that Rourke couldn't remain a credible threat unless he got into a suit of armor. There were too many interchangeable armored entities flying about to no real effect, and the new film had me worried when toward the end Tony Stark summons all his old suits by remote control to form a flying army of armor. The Iron Man series would be a dead end if it couldn't be about anything but armor; it'd be missing one of the key elements of superhero comics, something that was there in the Grand Prix fight. The frisson of that sequence came from the image of a shirtless burly man holding his own with Iron Man because he'd made himself superhuman. Shane Black and the Marvel Studio team must have realized this, because they dispelled my doubt by actually climaxing the new film with a fight between Iron Man with a shirtless, albeit more buff antagonist more superhuman than Mickey Rourke -- yet more human than the Incredible Hulk. This is a leap forward: enemies whose powers don't come from weapons or magic. We see that in comic books all the time, but it seems as if movie writers have had a hard time indulging in this most primal fantasy. Iron Man Three lets it rip, and that's all to the good.

The movie is something different from what's been advertised, but that doesn't become apparent until late. Yes, America is under siege from terrorists led by a bizarre individual called the Mandarin, whose logo seems to tie him to the Ten Rings organization that kidnapped Tony Stark in the first film, though no one seems to notice the symbolism. This Mandarin (Kingsley) cuts an unlikely figure: garbed like an ancient Chinese warrior but obviously not Oriental, with a drawling voice "like a Baptist preacher." He hijacks all TV networks to take credit for the attacks and rant about the evils of America and the current President (William Sadler) in particular. Kingsley's performance is deliberately preposterous and in head-slapping retrospect you wonder why anyone took this menace seriously -- you wonder why you did. The answer is: this is a superhero movie and you're supposed to suspend disbelief no matter how preposterous the villains look or sound. In this case that proves a mistake, but when you realize that the joke's on you it actually makes the film more likable, and Kingsley has a lot to do with that by boldly making his character even more preposterous. But if these developments disappoint anyone, there are plenty more menaces and potential menaces to think about, most prominently the disgruntled nerd turned super-entrepreneur Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), whose Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM) is a long-established evil entity in the Marvel Universe. More immediately, there are people running around burning with malignant energy. Some of them can channel it into dangerous power or raw strength; others just blow up, taking innocent people with them. Who's pulling their strings: the Mandarin, Killian, or scientist Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), who nurses her own grudge against Stark after a one-night stand on New Year's Eve 1999?

It becomes personal for Tony Stark after one of these human bombs nearly blows up Happy Hogan at Grauman's Chinese Theater. As usual, Stark has issues above and beyond his irreducible arrogance, but the film is least convincing when it claims that Tony is suffering from anxiety attacks following his ordeal in The Avengers. There's little point to these beyond the implication that Tony needs to take a break. But since he somehow can't (or won't) call on SHIELD or any of his Avengers buddies to take care of things he keeps driving himself, as always endangering his relationship with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), not to mention her life more than once. In the comics, Pepper illustrates the tendency toward excluding "normal" people from heroes' intimate circles. She has become an armored superhero in her own right and the new movie lurches the character in that direction while implying that her episode of power is only temporary. We will see, but with or without powers Paltrow remains a welcome presence in these pictures and arguably the best romantic-interest performer in superhero movies to date. Less welcome was the subplot that sends Tony to Tennessee to bond with a cutely precocious little boy (Ty Simpkins) while playing detective and repairing his armor. There's a smug snarkiness to the scenes Downey shares with Simpkins, which seem meant to mock the "fathers and sons" preoccupations of so many movies. Those preoccupations certainly deserve mockery but do you want to introduce a kid as an important character just to do this? It doesn't really hurt the picture, but you do wonder whether it was worth doing.

As I wrote on top, Iron Man Three does nothing, not even in the now-traditional post-credits bit, to start the ball rolling toward Avengers 2. I now suspect that we won't see any real buildup until next year's Guardians of the Galaxy movie, while the Thor and Captain America franchises attend to their own concerns. As I expected, we do get a welcome appearance by another Avengers cast member in the post-credit, along with a punch-line to the narcissistic narration with which Downey has punctuated the picture. If you didn't stay for that, however, you might get the impression that you had seen the last Iron Man movie. At the very least, it looks like Tony is going to take that break, but in doing so there are echoes of Christopher Nolan's Batman movies that don't seem coincidental. It's so blatant -- or remarkably coincidental -- that Tony even has a "Clean Slate" protocol that he activates to signal a break from his past, though what actually happens is more reminiscent of the self-destruction of Bruce Wayne's super-surveillance network from The Dark Knight. You might shrug it off on the assumption that superhero stories are inevitably derivative and repetitive, but when the film closes with Tony chucking his arc reactor into the ocean and driving away for parts unknown, yet affirming once more that "I am Iron Man," you might join me in perceiving an implicit critique of Nolan's presumption that he can make Bruce Wayne stop being Batman. It certainly is an odd note on which to end the first of Marvel's "second wave" of movies, but it's also a good thing that each individual movie franchise can retain a degree of thematic autonomy. Tony Stark may be tired, but the Iron Man series isn't, just yet.

On the Big Screen: IRON MAN 2 (2010)

As a longtime comic book reader, I'm used to picking up a monthly title and finding myself in medias res. Buying a single issue and getting a self-contained story is pretty rare these days. Even if you get one, the issue is usually so thick with subplots carried over from previous installments or foreshadowing of future events that a casual reader might get frustrated when he's expected to be hooked into buying future issues. I don't think this is a good idea, but I've grown accustomed to the convention to the point that it doesn't bug me too much. So I was prepared for the narrative approach of Jon Favreau's new film, which is not merely the sequel to his own Iron Man but chapter three (following The Incredible Hulk) of a larger story that doesn't have a formal title yet, and for which at least three more chapters are planned, not counting the possibility of Iron Man 3. Of course, in those innocent days of 2008 most people didn't know that Iron Man was chapter one of anything but its own franchise until after the end credits. Two years later the sense that there's something basically incomplete about the new film is inescapable, since Samuel L. Jackson is parading around with his eyepatch and his ridiculous jacket in the main body of the film. And he exposes the fundamental cheesiness of the, for want of any other name, "Avengers Initiative" concept with his performance. Because he isn't giving a performance in the sense of playing a character. He's simply doing "Samuel L. Jackson," and while that may be the only way he can stand up to Robert Downey Jr, the blatancy of his cliched presence makes it hard to regard the "Avengers" thing as anything but a corporate mandate that compromises the integrity of anything it touches. This subplot (or metaplot) is hardly advanced in Iron Man 2, so that Jackson's interventions fill the film with dead rather than hot air. They add to the impression that there's too much going on for Favreau and writer Justin Theroux to wrangle into proper narrative shape.

But don't you suppose that Tony Stark has an eventful life and many enemies? If you do, then you shouldn't be surprised if things seem to hit him from several directions at once. Iron Man 2 actually does have a narrative structure; it's built on the magnetism of Tony Stark, his knack for attracting trouble and disaster to himself. It seems to lack focus because we're still used to superhero movies being focused on a supervillain or an extraordinary threat. But the Iron Man films are star vehicles in a way, arguably, that no other superhero film has been before. The drama of the new installment is to see how he copes with all the crap coming his way. Let's see: a crazy Russian genius is out to kill him, not knowing that Tony's own technology is doing the job pretty well; the federal government (or specifically one powerful Senator) wants him to turn over the Iron Man technology, and will use Tony's somehow-transformed pal Jim Rhodes to do it; his business rival Justin Hammer is tight with the Senator and the military, and later recruits the crazy Russian to his side; and Pepper Potts is jealous of Tony's new personal assistant "Natalie Rushman" and more exasperated than ever, despite his promoting her to CEO, at his reckless behavior. It's not for you to make sense of it all; your job is to watch Robert Downey roll with the punches and throw some of his own.

Favreau's Iron Man films are a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre because they dare speak the truth that even the best Batman films, for instance, sidestep: the main reason the hero does what he does is because he can. And in this case the hero openly enjoys doing it. But what you might expect to come off as insufferable arrogance comes across as honesty instead. Neither the man nor the mask is a put-on or a penance. Tony Stark is not just an alter ego; he is the hero of the movie, and Iron Man is just a suit he wears. That's why this film can get away with having him in the suit relatively rarely -- and they could actually have done without at least one suit scene this time. These films are also unique to the genre for embracing a political context, even if the politics of the sequel are dubious or muddled. Parts of Iron Man 2 sound like Ayn Rand with a sense of humor, but it's unclear whether Stark has recanted some or all of his "privatized world peace" viewpoint by the film's close. In any event, Tea Partiers are likely to dig this movie, but don't hold that against it.

Iron Man 2 has plenty of flaws. Its best action sequence, the Russian's attack on Stark at the Grand Prix of Monaco, comes way too early in the movie, and none of the CGI armor wars that follow can match that scene's flair and inventiveness. The scene I would have gotten rid of is a rock-em sock-em slugfest between a drunken Stark and Rhodes in stolen armor. I expected someone's helmet to come flying off to end it, but they did nothing that clever in the whole fight. In fact, the only other really good action sequence is "Natalie's" demolition of a dozen or so security guards, humorously intercut with actor Favreau's desperate combat with a single flunky. Scarlett Johansson is welcome to return in future Marvel movies. There does seem to be an inherent limit to creative fighting for armored characters. Meanwhile, both villains were underwhelming. Mickey Rourke as the Russian is built up as the main menace, but has to yield the floor for the middle third of the picture to Sam Rockwell's flamboyant idiocy in the role of Justin Hammer. Rockwell is far over the top here. He made me think of Dana Carvey doing Gary Oldman; too infantile to be threatening, though I grant that the film's comedic nature doesn't require a very high threat level. Rourke is a menacing physical presence, but his character is just a collection of quirks (e.g. fond of birds) and the actor is slightly unconvincing as a Stark-level technical genius. He seems more like someone who, instructed by Rockwell figuratively to "take a dump on Tony Stark's front lawn," might obey him literally. Finally, the film just stops instead of having a proper ending, probably because Marvel insists that the real ending is what comes after the credits roll, the now-traditional extra scene that sets up more Avengers continuity. I won't spoil it but I will say it's not really worth waiting for as long as you know what the next films are on the Marvel schedule.

But I liked the film because there's still some novelty to Favreau's approach and mainly because of Downey's dominant performance -- though Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper really picks up the fast-talking romantic-comedy pace this time as well. I paid my eight bucks to see him play Tony Stark and I was not disappointed. Maybe I've reached the point where I'll tolerate a lot for his sake (I liked Sherlock Holmes too, some will recall), but I found Iron Man 2 easy to tolerate. I'm less demanding here than others may be, and I'm not going to go out of my way to defend it from its critics -- I think I've been critical enough myself to give people who aren't comic-book or Downey fans warning. Both Iron Man films are among the better superhero movies, but I worry that the Avengers imperative can only compromise the integrity of future films and the Favreau-Downey conception of Tony Stark. For all I know, this might be the last good Iron Man movie, so let me savor it a while.

On the Big Screen: SHERLOCK HOLMES (2009)

If you are looking for a proper mystery plot, forget it. If you're looking for a film of Victorian manners, you'll be but partially satisfied. But for all the fuss about how much Guy Ritchie's new film is inappropriately an action film, it seems to me to partake of the spirit of popular literature from the period from which the original Holmes emerged. And I think that Robert Downey Jr. gets to the essence of the character as a brilliant eccentric who disturbs the repose of his environment. He is probably the most articulate action hero there has ever been, and fully convincing in his dialogue (by three writers) as a creature of Victorian England. Holmes has been reimagined as someone who suffers from sensory overload and a compulsively analytical mind, a consciousness he must repress with drugs, drink, or the occasional round of pit fighting in the film's one truly gratuitous scene. This is an elaboration rather than a transformation of Holmes; in practice the detective is the same wizard of ratiocination as ever, except when Irene Adler is in the room or, almost generally, when the subject turns to women.

Encountering Watson's fiancee for the first time, he nearly perfectly maps her past from the evidence before him, but his one error earns him a face full of wine from the indignant woman; he had assumed a mercenary motivation when the true explanation was more tragic. He is uncertain around women due either to misogyny or inexperience, and this has fueled speculation about his relationship with Watson, who here is his roommate but on his way out to live with the fiancee. Some reviewers are drawing inferences about the roommates from a modern frame of reference, but a little cinematic literacy leads one to conclude that Holmes and Watson have no more or less of a "bromance" than the three protagonists of Gunga Din. As Watson, Jude Law is in the same position as Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the 1939 film, except that this being a little less of a Boy's Own story than that quasi-Kipling saga, the good doctor gets to have things both ways, with an indulgent wife allowing him continued adventures with his friend.

I am no Sherlockian and have never read a word of Conan Doyle. My standard of authenticity is the Jeremy Brett TV series from the 1980s, and as I've said, I see a consistency between Downey's bits of brusque arrogance and bursts of belittling wit and Brett's domineering manner. I do know that for all that Doyle himself succumbed to spiritualism after World War I, he kept Holmes a strict skeptic, and I was relieved to see that all the supernatural elements of the new story are properly debunked by the end. The one point I see as an injustice to Doyle and his creation is the scene in which Adler has to inform Holmes of the existence of Professor Moriarty (a vocal but facially unseen presence here). This undermines what I took to be Holmes's gradual, obsessive discovery of the Napoleon of Crime, which could have been a subsequent movie unto itself.

But as no Sherlockian I didn't mind at all this being an action film, especially since Ritchie pulled off the challenge of balancing period flavor and a frantic modern pace. This film is as much a CGI-a-rama as any action film, but it keeps the actors foregrounded, and they prevent the effects from upstaging them. In one scene a half-built steamship has been accidentally sent sliding into the Thames, nearly crushing Holmes and Watson on its way. But as the hulk splashes into the river Downey un-ducks his head and pops his eyes wide to steal the scene. He has learned how to master the CGI screenscape and may now have two ongoing franchises in which to refine that mastery. He commands the screen like a silent film star, and some of Ritchie's images and furious montages have the primal power of that period. One sequence that crosscuts from Holmes and Watson battling an Eric Campbell-like menace (Robert Maillet)to Adler attempting an escape through sewers with pilfered goods to chaos in the House of Lords and closeups of the glowering villain, all to the even more furious beat of Hans Zimmer's score, may seem attention-deficient to some eyes, but to me, and maybe because of the period, it was more reminiscent of D.W. Griffith than Michael Bay. My overall impression is that Ritchie has established continuity with the old tradition of genre cinema rather than breaking with it in any offensive way. Why, he even has a scene with a heroine on a conveyor mechanism menaced by a saw! In simpler terms, he's made a kick-ass movie that, in my view, doesn't really violate the spirit of Holmes -- not that Arthur Conan Doyle ever cared about that, anyway.

While Downey is his present masterful self, and Jude Law may have found the role he was born to play, I must confess that Rachel McAdams fails as Irene Adler. Her dialogue isn't written at the same level as the lead actors', either because that's meant to mark her as American or because the writers knew that McAdams simply couldn't speak the lines otherwise. Whatever the reason, she doesn't come across as brilliantly as Adler should, and the actress looks and sounds like what she probably is, a modern American out of her depth. It's too bad if this role reveals her limitations, since I really liked her in Red Eye, but even some great ones could never do period, and maybe McAdams should restrict herself accordingly.

While I liked the film quite a bit, I understand that the liberties taken with Doyle's creations may make Sherlock Holmes less likable for some if not many other viewers. And while I won't concede the last word to Sherlockians, I can see how the tone of the thing might turn off people who find the crash and bang inappropriate for the material. But I think the crash and bang are well enough orchestrated and kept from overshadowing the actors to make Ritchie's Holmes an objectively good film, whether it's a great Holmes film or not.