Iron Man 3 – Movie Review

movie reviewI really liked the first one. The down to earth tone and feel of it. Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. I couldn’t imagine someone else in that role. The second movie generated the same feeling I had for Iron Man 1. But what you immediately saw was that they amped it all up a notch. More action. More Humour. More everything. Part 2 was entertaining but not quite where the first part was.

Iron Man 3 starts after the events of The Avengers. Tony sits at home and tries to deal with his inner conflicts. That conflict basically is some sort of post traumatic stress syndrome. When Tony worked with the Avengers he understood that there are other heroes out there. He alone cannot save the world. In the end he is just a human with all human weaknesses. The only thing that makes him special is his armor. But he can’t have it with him all the time. And that’s kind of the plot of the movie. It shows us how vulnerable Tony is. When suddenly a terrorist organization is doing bombings and killing tons of innocent people. A man with the name of ‘The Mandarin’ is responsible and threatening the United States. Just for fun I guess since I cannot remember him saying something about what exactly his motivations are. Except the usual empirialism the USA represent. At the same time we have another new face entering the Ring. Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) is a scientist who’s trying to get Stark Industries to join his cause to find the ultimate cure for everything that could happen to a human beeing. Pepper Potts, in the name of Stark Industries, refuses the offer since, what Killian is looking for, could easily be used as a weapon. Killian is not amused. In the meantime Tony reacts to Mandarin’s threats, which leads to the complete destruction of Tony’s home. Now it’s personal and Tony wants to take Mandarin out.

The movie has a few twists which, at least for me, weren’t too surprising. The overall story felt a little flat and did not have the depth of the first two. There is a lot going on in this movie. A lot of location jumping which was a little exhausting. The action scenes were loaded with kaboom and eye candy. For some reason, after 3/4 of the movie, I didn’t care anymore. It was just even more CGKaboom. Especially the final battle at the end, when suddenly 30 or 40 different AI controlled Iron Man suits appear. This was just too much for me. Then at the end end we have the fistfight between Tony and the villain. That should have been the finale. That was done great and engaging. Thet 10 minutes of kaboom before that were just there becauuseeee… because. If I would have to use only two words to describe this movie then it would be “too loud!”. For no reason. The first one worked great without the massive action stuff.

What saves the movie are the actors. They all seemed to have had a fun experience with this film. The chemistry between Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow is still there and working. The additional cast did a nice job too. Ben Kingsley and especially Guy Pearce are worth to be mentioned as well. They also got the humour right again. There were a couple of well placed and timed ‘laugh out loud’ moments. It’s also worth to mention that Tony, for the most parts of the movie, is not in his armor. Which really made it a better movie. Due to the destruction of his home and laboratory, Tony gets put in situations where he has to be inventive (A-Team style) to find a way out. That are really nice moments that bring us a little closer to the character and show the difficulties he has to deal with.

There are lots of good parts in this movie. But also a couple that really bugged me and just felt like “meh”. I guess ultimately I wouldn’t say the movie is worse or better than any of the other two. It’s ‘just there’ with the other two movies.

The VFX work is pretty much great here. Everything looked seamless and the integration of the CG into the live action footage (and vice versa) looked pretty much flawless. The camera work is nothing special though. From that alone it’s not a movie you need to see on the big screen. Bluray would be enough. The 3d was amaaaaaazing… but no, I saw it in 2d and that was more than enough.

Overall it’s a fun movie that doesn’t expect too much off its audience. I personally just think they tried a little too hard after Iron Man 2 and The Avengers. However… it is entertaining!

Iron Man 3 on IMDb

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