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| More heavy metal from Iron Man 3. |
««1/2 Iron Man
3. Written by Drew Pearce & Shane Black. Directed by Shane Black. At area theaters.
“Drones better,”
declares Ivan Vanko, the villainous Russian scientist played by Mickey
Rourke in Iron Man 2. Judging
from the news lately, the Pentagon certainly seems to agree with Mickey
Rourke—when fighting terrorists, “drones better” indeed. But who would ever
expect that Tony Stark, the original Superhero in the Iron Mask, would ever
come to share his adversary’s point of view?
Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 finds Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in a bad way. Still suffering the after-effects of his battle with
inter-dimensional aliens in The Avengers,
he can’t sleep, and he can’t find an all-night pharmacy in Malibu to fill a
prescription for Xanax. A measure of healthy distraction arrives in the guise
of The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), a long-winded terrorist mastermind who looks
like Osama Bin Laden run amok in a Chinese souvenir shop. But even after the
Mandarin perpetrates a string of horrific bombings, PTSD Tony has a hard time
getting motivated. “The Mandarin is a problem, but he’s not a superhero
problem,” he declares. Things only start to get interesting for him with the
appearance of Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a former Stark groupie who has
morphed into a resentful rival. Killian, it seems, has found a way to “reprogram”
human DNA to produce a private army of smoking-hot super-soldiers.
Bullshit, you say? It’s bullshit on
stilts, but next to inter-dimensional aliens it’s all pretty tame stuff. Shane
Black, who made his name writing action scripts like Lethal Weapon, keeps things humming along fast enough for us not to
notice we’re stimulated, yet vaguely bored, like one of those lab rats
frantically pressing a button to enervate its own pleasure center.
As usual in this franchise, it’s
Downey Jr. who is the real draw here, raising shit-eating cockiness to new
levels of appeal. His act was already getting old in episode 2, but Black and
screenwriter Drew Pearce inject notes of vulnerability that take the series in
a slightly different direction. Tony Stark’s technology has gotten so good, it
appears, that the only weak link left is Tony Stark. Thus we are treated to the
paradoxical sight of superhero battling his enemies from a safe distance, using
a remote-control version of the Iron Man suit. Guys who personally defeat alien
armies deserve to be cocky, but are drone pilots also entitled to victory
struts?
A slightly more cynical soul than I
would note that Downey Jr.’s contract for more Iron Man movies is under negotiation. Considering that the actor knows
that he represents 90% of what its good about the franchise, odds are that he
will drive a hard bargain—so hard that the studio may see fit to recast Tony Stark
or drop the role entirely. Not by accident, it seems, does number 3 begin to
portray the Suit as its own autonomous character, backed up by a motley (and
highly collectible) gang of Iron Teammates. But if Robert Downey Jr. is
expendable, what hope is there for the rest of us?
© 2013
Nicholas Nicastro
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