Tony Stark is having trouble sleeping. One can understand how watching aliens pour through a rip in the sky above New York City can do that to a guy. Still, he saved the world, he has the love of a good woman, and he can spend his days tinkering in his shop, making cooler and cooler toys. So why can’t he sleep?
Because he feels as though he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. “It’s been 72 hours since you’ve slept, sir,” Jarvis, his computerized butler, tells him in the wee hours of the morning as he’s working on a new Iron Man suit that can disassemble itself, rocket to him in pieces, and attach itself to his body. The moment you see an arm soar across the room and clamp onto his hand, you know the new gizmo is going to come in handy at some point.
Stark needs rest. He needs therapy. He needs to remove the weight from his shoulders. But the Mandarin won’t let him.
Played with evil relish by the great Ben Kingsley, the Mandarin is a run-of-the-mill but powerful terrorist who spouts epitaphs about teaching the world a lesson. He’s quick to take the credit when explosions across the U.S. claim dozens of innocent lives, and even quicker to paint a target on Stark when one of the blasts puts Happy Hogan, Stark’s friend and former body guard, at death’s door. “You’ll never see me coming,” he growls in a video message broadcast around the world.
There’s just one problem: There’s no evidence of a bomb at any of the detonation sites. So: When is a bomb not a bomb?
Co-written and directed by Shane Black, the scribe behind the first two Lethal Weapon movies, Iron Man 3 is many things: It’s the most human of the Iron Man trilogy; it’s an engaging crime procedural; and it’s an effective action movie. But it’s not the best of the three films. That honor still goes to the first one. It is, however, far better than the second one.
At this point, Robert Downey, Jr., is Iron Man. He inhabits the character with such ease and gristle, you can’t help but be drawn into his character’s struggle to find peace. You also have to smile at the way Downey delivers Stark’s trademark wisecracks. Iron Man might have the weight of the world on his shoulders, but he can still lighten the mood better than anyone. Black reserved the best jokes for Stark’s scenes with a young boy he befriends in a small Tennessee town, where he’s investigating an explosion. “Do you know why I know you’re cold?” he says to the boy, his lips curled in a mock-quiver and his voice wavering. “Because we’re connected.” Then he peels off in his car and leaves the boy standing in the snow.
Really, Downey carries the weight of the movie on his shoulders, which is unusual for a summer release. When you think blockbuster, you think action, spectacle, and special effects. But that’s where Black came up short. There are several action sequences, including a tense mid-air rescue, but after the movie was over, I couldn’t remember a single memorable shot or “Wow” moment. Black handled the human side of the movie well, but failed to bring a sense of visual style to the action. Audiences will be pleased with what they see, but I found the action to be lacking.
Still, Iron Man 3 earns praise. It’s clever in the way it eases our hero’s burden (wait until you see what Pepper Potts does) but still allows him to save the day; it’s funny and dramatic in the right measures; and the action is good enough to please less discriminate viewers. It might not scale the heights of the original movie or The Avengers, but if this is the last stand-alone Iron Man movie starring Downey, then it brings the series to a satisfying conclusion.
Three stars out of four. Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi violence and brief suggestive content.