Heres the story; playboy billionaire industrialist engineer Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is recovering from his battle in New York against aliens with the help of the Avengers, Marvels cannon of action-prone and muscle bound heroes. He's previously rebuilt his body after being held captive by Middle eastern extremists, in the process created a metal, enemy pulverizing suit, equipped with flying jets and energy blasters of course, defeated his crazy competitor, a vengeful, bird loving Russian, and now an alien race. Bottom line: the man's had his fair share of ass-kicking. This understandably, is beginning to effect him. He's having anxiety attacks and the fact that a supposed terrorist labeled the Mandarin is targeting civilians, and maybe even some friends of Mr. Stark, isn't helping. Sure enough as the story progresses, his pals, president, prodigy, love, and life are on the line. With out giving away many of the films twists and turns, Tony ends up somewhat back where he started and must find the tools to save his fate before time runs out and you know the story. Or do you...?
The good: Iron Man 3's action sequences dazzle with "Marvel-ous" (sorry couldn't help myself) visual effects, but the real show stealer is the films extremely clever, frequently hilarious, and awesomely self aware humor. Shane Black peppers the script with so much chewable wit and varying, unexpected twists that you can't help yourself from having a great time amidst the violent chaos, even though some may find the jokes distracting. I beg to differ. RDJ owns the role and steals the show as Iron Man once more. Per usual, he adds in his perfect mixture of narcissistic snakiness with evolving dramatic struggles, but never takes it all to seriously. Not only does he do well, but the entire cast all are fairly strong and add their fair share of laughs, deliciously evil or humorously likable moments, and seem to be having a good time as well.
The story is thick but presented in a well paced and orchestrated fashion and it strings together the explosions in a clean juxtaposition (oxymoron?) with it's reveals and character developments. The special effects are top notch and immerse the audience into the fast paced action sequences, and they also carry the torch on from The Amazing Spiderman in which the SFX are a slight notch more realistic and crisper than previous Marvel outings of the past 3 years. And now for the direction, while Shane Black doesn't completely steal the show visually, he sure as hell puts his personal stamp on the film, and I welcome it. He has taken the previous material and blended it with his different style and humor and created what I believe to be a more unique and quirkier superhero flick that delivers much of what it promises, but surprises as well in areas you wouldn't expect. Many die hard comic fans will be angered or even infuriated by the liberties Black takes with the source material, but again as a non-comic book reader, you won't hear any complaining from me. I love his ambition and some of the daring choices he makes along the journey. In conclusion I think that he has tied an equal parts goofy but still satisfying bow on the explosive trilogy, and has made me excited for more Marvel outings to come.
As a side note, go into it with an open mind, stay after the credits, you won't be disappointed!
