Iron Man 3

I am not huge fan of Superhero movies as the conceit that they are 'Super' also makes for a poor movie script by default. You know as the audience that they will never be in real danger, that they will not die by the end of the movie, nor will they have the same boundaries and restrictions as us mere mortals. That in itself means that any action scenes or tense, suspenseful danger never works well for me. Most Superhero films make up for this by either a) going all out batshit crazy with the action and destroying entire cities or countries whilst the Superheros who are fighting get slightly scratched armour or something, or b) they put a loved one of the Superhero in danger (or the entire world or universe) and as they are not 'Super' can therefore die or be destroyed.

Unfortunately the main plot of Iron Man 3 did not move away from the standard formula of a bad guy trying to destroy the world and take away the girl and for me, most of the action scenes fell a bit flat. Having said that though I quite enjoyed the movie. The reason for this, I think, is that it was written and directed by Shane Black. Shane also wrote Lethal Weapon 1 & 2, The Last Boyscout and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang so obviously knows his action movie genre. In all of those movies the action superstars are written in a witty, interesting and engaging way. It’s not Stallone or Arnie saying 12 words for the movie and just blowing up bad guys left, right and centre. It’s Riggs and Murtaugh bantering and looking out for each other or a complex gay Val Kilmer character just owning every scene he is in. I found that this trademark of Shane's writing came through in this Iron Man and was definitely the best thing about the film.

For the first time since maybe V for Vendetta (my favourite Superhero movie) I found myself kind of caring for this Superhero. I felt a little bit bad for billionaire Tony Stark and what he was going through and I enjoyed how it was written and shown on the screen. If you forget about the formulaic story arc and focus on the story of Tony Stark then I think this film is pretty good. Now, I’m not saying the action was boring or bad either! Seeing Iron Man flying around and fighting superhuman somethings was a blast. Especially when he called on his legion of Iron Men to fight for him as an army. The problem I have is as I said above, you know that he is never really in trouble. Nor is Pepper Potts or anyone on the planet other than the odd minion here or there, or unlucky civilians that get caught in the cross fire.

I think if this movie was allowed to jump out of the PG13 range and into the area Shane Black is normally more comfortable with and become an MA15+ or even R18+ movie it would have been spectacular. You could feel the parts that were dumbed down to appease the studio but you could see the original grittier idea's peeking through from time to time. I would love to see studio's take a risk and bring something like that out as the standard Superhero stuff is just getting a bit boring. If the focus of the film had truly been about Tony Stark and his bad decisions, the long standing consequences of those decisions and putting those he loves into danger then I might have cared more about what was going on in the action and fighting scenes. Instead I was entertained for the whole time but never really satisfied ... which actually sums up most Superhero movies for me in a nutshell.

SCORE: 6/10

IMDB Info for Iron Man 3