How Iron Man 3 Destroyed Marvel’s Aura of Invincibility for Me

ironman

Just look at that lazy, smug bastard.

Marvel’s first post-Avengers cinema foray is out, reviews are in, we’ve been to see it (and if you haven’t: here there be spoilers), the smoke has cleared, and the Thor sequel is coming down the pipes soon. But something feels off. Why am I kind of dreading the slew of upcoming Marvel Universe sequels to films I entirely enjoyed?

First off, none of this should have worked in the first place. Iron Man took the lead and delivered what I still consider to be the absolute pinnacle superhero origin story on film. In my opinion, that movie was without flaw. I didn’t truly believe that Samuel L. Jackson was going to cameo as Nick Fury and announce an Avengers team-up until I saw it onscreen with my own two eyes. “Holy hell, it’s happening…no goddamn way.” was my cynical immediate response. But with Marvel now in control of most of their characters’ movie rights, a big part of me believed and was more than thrilled at the prospect.

The Incredible Hulk scored again, somehow doing what the talented Ang Lee could not in making a definitive film starring Marvel’s jolly green badass. And Tony Stark showed up at the end to further tease the team-up.  What Iron Man 2 lacked in story, it made up for with an amazing cast that added more fuel to the fire of a cohesive cinematic universe filled with classic comic characters interacting with one another, and ended with an epic shot of mighty Mjolnir.

Thor was going to be the trickiest character to adapt as classical mythology figures in comic book adventures make for a rough sell. Just ask DC where their proposed Wonder Woman film and television series are at. But Marvel pulled it off with a stylish mix of science fiction, fantasy combined with a classic fish-out-of-water love story. Captain America was as predictably straightforward as one would expect his origin story to be, but it featured some surprises and came off quite nicely while setting the stage for the culmination off it all, leaving nothing left but for some awesome writer/director to somehow, some way bring all of the heroes we’d met along the way together to make the most epic comic book action flick of all time. Like that could happen.

ironman1

That totally happened.

The rest is, of course, history. Marvel Studios did the impossible by convincingly introducing their heroes individually in a series of outstanding films and then bringing them all together with minimal recasting for an unbelievable team-up film that killed the box office while appealing to hardcore comic nerds and casual popcorn film audiences alike. If they could do that, they could do anything. Marvel had the best run qualitywise of any connected film series I can think of, and they did it almost effortlessly by simply sticking to the themes and concepts of their nearly limitless source material with a little extra flair thrown in. There was no reason to doubt that they could do it all over again.  Until now, that is.

Iron Man 3 had a fresh new director with a long history of writing quality action flicks, was going to feature the debut of his most menacing nemesis yet, had positive buzz, and looked to be downright epic. Then I got to the theater and was greeted by an opening sequence set to the mega-cheesy dance pop strains of Blue (Da Ba Dee). I don’t care if it’s an American Pie film; there is no movie that can’t be made less tonally serious and more lame by including that song. Were they asking too much for the rights to the theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or what?

And it wasn’t just a bad music choice in the opening scene. The rest of it was full of Christmas music. In a summer blockbuster. That actually happened. Gone altogether was the Tom Morello/Black Sabbath-fueled heavy metal soundtrack to match the heavy metal action. Hell, even Joss Whedon had Stark rep some AC/DC and Sabbath in The Avengers. Consistency, man! That was a big part of what made Marvel’s Phase One such a resounding success.  Director Shane Black appeared to be much more interested in doing whatever he felt like than serving the franchise as a whole, and that was clear from top to bottom.

ironman2

Cue Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy for maximum badassery!

But all the explosions in the trailer! This one’s got to be the ironest Iron Man yet, right? Not so much. Stark spends most of his armor time dicking about in a prototype that doesn’t really work, learning about the stupidity of using AI and then ignoring it (even after it menaces his lady in his own bed), and occasionally dragging his inert crap suit around like it was made of paper maché. His coolest action moment is entirely iron-free and the only real heroism he pulls off while controlling it is literally playing Barrel of Monkeys (his words) with freefalling politicians. Wee.

But dat villain! The Mandarin, Tony Stark’s legit arch-nemesis, reimagined as an international terrorist! That’s got to be cool, right? Well, if you’ve seen the film, you know they took it in a different direction that served as a rather clever artistic/political statement, although given the tone of the rest of the film I’d guess they just saw it as an amusing punchline. Either way, after ratcheting up the tension like they did and then just turning the whole thing into a joke/twist, it left a massive narrative void that was filled with a bunch of nondescript yellow glowy people led by another nondescript yellow glowy guy that’s not so much a supervillain as he is yet another Stark Industries business rival who seems to lack perspective for such a supposed genius. If anyone is out of yawns, I’ve got some extras you can have.

And now we’ve got to talk kid sidekicks. Has there ever been a single instance a child in the cast making a superhero story better in any way? Well, yes; Kick-Ass, but Hit-Girl was nowhere to be seen in this one. Stark may not have given the kid his own armor and called him “Iron Boy”, but that would have been the next logical step. Cloying, cheesy, unnecessary, cliché, and just a plainly weak decision on the part of all involved. Please never do that again, every writer ever.

The grandiose finale had its moments, but it also pretty much makes Tony Stark as Iron Man a nonentity. Why does he need to don his armor ever again? He can just have a million suits of armor on autopilot fight for him and then just blow them all up for shits and giggles.  Why? Because it’s romantic? Because audiences like it when stuff goes boom? While I agree wholeheartedly that this should be Shellhead’s final solo foray, I think having him swear off the armor altogether was maybe a bit premature when you consider that whole Avengers thing.

ironman3

Market research shows that six-year-olds believe 1000 Iron Men are 1000 times cooler than one.

I remember reading that Avengers director Joss Whedon’s reaction upon watching Iron Man 3 was “what am I supposed to do now?” At the time, I took as the statement as figurative praise implying that the film was so epic he felt like he wouldn’t be able to top it. It turns out he was being literal. It’s like following X-Men: The Last Stand. When somebody makes such an unholy, illogical mess of a franchise, it’s got to be a bitch to have to be the one to pick up all the pieces and essentially try and unwrite the stupidity. Why would Marvel allow this kind of nonsense in a series with a continuous, interlocking narrative?

Cameos? Marvel Universe references? Well, they mentioned New York during the film. That’s a thing, I guess. Remember those great post-credits sequences that always teased things to come and got you all pumped up for the next film? I waited through the entire obnoxiously long film credits including a baffling 70’s-style montage that was completely out of tone with pretty much anything in modern film outside of tongue-in-cheek neo-grindhouse flicks. And what did I get? A really lame joke sequence featuring Mark Ruffalo. That’s it. Go home, suckers. I suppose even a dumb cameo moment is better than nothing, but just barely; especially after staving off sleep through some ten minutes of credits. You know damn well they could have done better.

ironman4

This one line could have saved the entire film for me.

So yeah, I wasn’t super-pleased when I left the theater. That’s not to say I hated Iron Man 3. I mean it’s probably one of the better examples of the “Curse of Three” in which the third film in a great nerd franchise suddenly tanks the entire thing -usually to the point where a reboot is necessary- but it’s still a clear-cut example of it in my eyes. But the damage that was done here was more than just your average underwhelming film. It planted the idea in my head that future Marvel films may only get worse from here.

By the laws of typical major studio cinema, Thor probably shouldn’t have turned out great in the first place and Captain America is not the most exciting solo superhero, but they both worked the first time out on the strength of Marvel’s focus on consistency and quality control. After Iron Man 3 I feel that previous focus may have been shattered. With more Thor and Cap coming up, I wonder if they are going to be able to return to form and deliver great sequels for two of Marvel’s more challenging heroes when they weren’t even able to do it with one of their easier/cooler ones.

I know that the film has no shortage of fans (in fact, I’m probably the minority on this), but here’s what I’d like those who disagree to do for me: find a copy of the recent Japanese animated Iron Man film, Rise of the Technovore, and watch it. I then want them to come back here, look me in the virtual eyes, and tell me that filming that story in live action would not have made for an infinitely better film than Iron Man 3. This is me daring them the do that with a straight face.  In fact, I don’t want to wait. Just watch the trailer and then try it.

Maybe I’m overreacting (and I hope I am), but seldom does a film series bounce back once the quality starts slipping. The blame may be on Disney’s shoulders, as they have a pretty terrible history with live action films and are legendary for cutting corners (read: quality) wherever they can. The timing is certainly suspect. Or maybe I’m just looking for something to whine about. But either way, I seem to have lost much of my enthusiasm for upcoming non-Whedon Marvel film projects, and that loss of enthusiasm happened while I was in the theater watching Iron Man 3. And no part of me will be surprised if and when Whedon abandons his Avengers duties and departs, either.

By all means, tell me I’m wrong. I hope you’re right and Thor: The Dark World is so awesome it makes Lord of the Rings look like The Golden Compass. I hope Captain America: The Winter Soldier makes me laugh at myself for being such a pessimistic ass and that Guardians of the Galaxy is so cosmically epic that it opens up the whole science fiction facet of comics in a way that Green Lantern failed to do. But it’s probably a good idea to keep your expectations in check. You know, just in case.

 

 

Similar Posts

24 Comments

  1. While I see your point, I actually really enjoyed Iron Man 3. It was about on par with all the other Marvel films to date. Weak in narrative and character development, but a lot of fun to watch. My only major disappointment came with Mandarin. Truly a shame what they did to that character.

  2. I don’t think IM3 was all that bad. I certainly didn’t mind the kid. And oddly enough, as big an IM fan as I am, I didn’t even mind the whole Mandarin reveal. My two big issues are a) Iron Patriot was totally useless and b) Tony blowing up all his armors. I agree that while that made for an awesome fight scene, it does bring up all sorts of issues. Why should Tony even wear armor if he can remote control it? Who needs the Avengers, Stark is a team unto himself, etc etc etc. Honestly though, just have Jarvis get corrupted by a bad guy and bam, right there, Tony can swear off remote control armor and we can return to status quo.

    Finally, yeah, making it seem like Tony was going to be giving up the armor entirely was a boneheaded move when we all know Avengers 2 is coming out. I really don’t get what they were trying to pull with that. All that said, still loved the movie and am not worried for future Marvel projects. Although, I do hope they quit making these movies before they get bad rather then running them into the ground (here’s looking at you Rocky).

  3. You take back the comparison to The Last Stand. You take that back right now. Among many other things, the main problem with that movie was that, in the end, absolutely nothing of consequence had changed. Iron Man 3 is displaying the exact opposite phenomenon.

    Other than that…

    -I don’t think you can brush aside Iron Man 2’s legitimately bad (IMO) storyline and thematic incoherence with “what it lacks in story.” That one still stands as the worst Marvel movie to date, regardless of the purpose it allegedly serves in setting up the rest of the universe. Yes, it’s got some shockingly entertaining performances, but it’s a movie in which almost nothing is accomplished.

    -The music choices in this movie, aside from being outright inspired (including the opening number), work as a maturing statement for Tony. Essentially, he’s learning to embrace his role as an actual hero instead of staying a punk-rock weapons designer. His whole arc in the movie is realizing that HE is Iron Man. HE is a superhero.

    http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/interview-composer-brian-tyler-ushers-in-epic-new-sound-for-iron-man-3.php

    -This is also why his best action beat occurs outside the suit. I think it’s rather wise of them to treat the suits as narratively weightless. Heck, we’ve ALREADY seen four (five?) versions of the suit in only three movies, so it’s clear that writers are mainly using them to suit their narratives. Same here. That Whedon and the rest will have to take this into account doesn’t strike me as an actual criticism, so much as a concern/curiosity.

    -The Extremis goons were, at the least, not worse than the bunch of drones seen in part 2.

    -Just because the tone of the movie is jokey, don’t think for a second that Black isn’t being very pointed with the way he’s handling things like the Mandarin. He just isn’t the kind of writer to hammer home a point. Not that it’s exactly subtle.

    -If anything, I think that the degree to which this was a Shane Black movie is encouraging. It shows that Marvel isn’t ruling with an iron fist, preferring to give interesting filmmakers the floor and actually DO things. I get that you didn’t love this one, but its idiosyncrasies come from the same place that got us Branagh’s Thor, Johnson’s Cap, and Whedon’s Avengers. If we want the Marvel movieverse to be anything but a monotonous bore, they have to be willing to take chances. They’ve proven they are, and so I’m rather optimistic about their future for now.

  4. I actually liked it, on face value. The biggest problem I had with IM3 (aside from the replacement of alcoholism with PTSD because Disney) was the predictability of it all. Overly obvious foreshadowing – oh, Tony Stark snubbed that Guy Pearce, there’s no WAY he’s going to grow up to be superdouche villain. Oh, look, we just saw Pepper Potts being injected with that glowing stuff, SURELY she won’t survive that 7-story plummet into a raging inferno. I know that’s a big part of these mega action flicks, but the only real surprise was the Mandarin. I know what they were going for, but I’m still on the fence about that one.

    IM3 was like a third leg on a pair of pants – made from the same material, but awkward and mostly useless. Enjoyable and humorous, but largely out of sync with the previous two. I see how they were trying to tie in the previous events of the Avengers, but that felt forced and fell flat, in my opinion.

  5. I couldn’t agree with the author more. I enjoyed the movie up to the Mandarin reveal but after that I kept wondering if it was a joke. When I realized nope, Black really made that happen, I was pissed at being invested in what appeared to be one of the best bad guys I’ve ever seen only to find out he was a bumbling drunk idiot. So much wasted potential. I think that’s what it came down to is just crazy amounts of potential squandered on yet another jealous business rival. All Black really did was reboot IM2 using biological drones instead of machines.

    I think it’s less Marvel/Disney and definitely more Shane Black. I won’t be sad if he isn’t asked to direct any more Marvel movies.

  6. David R, sorry everyone has opinions, I just disagree with almost everything you wrote.

    -IM2, while being bad, did set Tony up as Iron Man. As you stated he used numerous suit. You also got to see War Machine (which they could use late). So it did accomplish a little bit.

    – Music, I agree with Nick here that the music was uninspired and provided nothing for the character. You can mature a character and leave his edge. They took it away.

    – “This is also why his best action beat occurs outside the suit.” To use your own words – He is Iron Man. He is a Superhero. Accept at the end, he’s not. He’s an action hero. He’s not wear a suit really. The suits are fighting on their own. Why does Batman need an outfit? He can fight without out. Personally, I would like to have seen Tony go back to the lab and create a suit to deal with the problem. He’s supposed to be a supergenius (even if you ignore the comics, the first movie showed it). Instead he’s action man.

    – You comment about too many suits. That’s the point of Iron Man. He has a suit for each challenge. He uses his intellect to make a suit that can handle stuff. Did he here? No. The end was just a toy commerical.

    – If Whedon said what he said, than it is a criticism. There is nothing left for the Iron Man character. He doesn’t need the suits (Since he’s like Cap now without them). He can sit and remote control them. The character didn’t grow in this movie.

    – The Extremis goons were worse than the bunch of drones. At least the drones it made sense to have armor priecing bullets, missiles, etc. The Extremis were stronger than Thor. (Thor’s hammer hits the suit no issue. Extremis punch – suit destroyed). At least the comic, only had one Extremis.

    – You left out Pepper saving the day. That was horrible actually. if you wanted Tony to grow as a character than you should have killed her.

    I’m not even a huge Iron Man fan. I followed him since the West Coast Avengers. Tony was always smug. He struggles to be a team player.
    He had issues. He was a womanizer and an alcoholic (which I know they can’t show). He rose to challenges with the suit on. They took all that out.

    Iron Man 3, which is fun if you turn off your mind, is a step back for the Marvel Universe and films.

    Haha, honestly the Disney cartoons are much closer to the source material (Which can be cheesy, racist, weird, etc) than the movie is. Of course, everyone loves Batman who is known as the “World’s Greatest Detective” but doesn’t detect anything in the 3 movies.

    Rant finished

  7. The biggest problem was the bad guys random motivation. They could have saved the movie if they made more parallels to Tony, and basically have him be evil Tony Stark. After he was rejected he was desperate, like Tony in the cave. So he learned he had to save himself and not expect handouts from others. Maybe he had some disability witch he cured himself with genetic manipulation. The alien attack caused Tony to build more suits, and it caused him to further develop the super soldier serum (btw why wasn’t there any reference to Captain America on this?). His endgame is to ensure humanity’s safety by turning everyone into super soldiers.

  8. @David R: You made some good points about why it worked for you and that’s cool. Naturally, my post was about why it didn’t work for me. In terms of The Last Stand, the comparison is mostly in that they both represent the Curse of Three and that they both left big messes for future writers to try and get around. X3 needlessly killed off so many vital characters and depowered so many other it was insane. Even if they didn’t have the balls not to leave an out to the “cure” thing. I agree with a lot of what you said about Iron Man 2 as well. What bugged me the most is that they just threw out “Oh, Iron Man ended all wars” like it was nothing. Really? Sounds like that might have made a cooler story than the one we go. Just saying. Rourke and Johansson were soooooo cool, though.

    @Joy: I actually left a lot of things out of my article I could have gone off about, and the random PTSD attacks was one. The very first shot of Stark in the very first film was just his martini. That should have foreshadowed his battle with alcoholism. It was touched on a little in the first sequel, so I was expecting it to be full blown in this one. Nope. Vanished. How much you want to bet Whedon’s going to feel he like he has to pick it back up for Avengers 2 now?

    @Nicholas: I am thinking I might have logged in under my formal name and posted that rebuttal in my sleep. Are you me?

    Thanks for all the feedback, folks.

  9. Cyclops, Jean Grey, Charles Xavier. 1… 2… 3? And yeah, I know they tried to back out the Prof X one by having him transfer his mind to another body or whatever, but did that really make it any better? Does badly unwriting your own bad writing at the end make it good writing?

    I would suggest that every bad thing ever to happen to anyone being completely reversible in modern comics is one of the failings of the medium. How are you supposed to really give a shit about anything that happens if you know they are probably just going to undo it in a few months’ time? The same thing applies to film. If you are going to do it, do it. Don’t try to bitch out.

  10. I have to agree with the author. Honestly, I found the film entirely forgettable. :/

    As for future Marvel films, I predict Captain America is going to suck.

    Thor on the other hand, I think that story arc has a lot more potential simply because it’s removed from Earth and humanity in general. Tony and the gang have to continue living in a post-alien attack world, and the writers just have to keep building on that story line, while it’s all just business as usual for the Asgardians, they have so many more possibilities with that world.

  11. Pepper Potts took out the main bad guy at the end of IRON MAN 3 (not Iron Man).

    “Catwoman” took out Bane at the end of DKR (not the dark knight).

    I guess super-powered title characters just aren’t cool enough to get the job done anymore. I guess I should get my wife to do something about it.

  12. Absolutely this. I went to see IM3 with several family members, including my cousin. After the movie, when everybody went around saying how much they liked/didn’t like it, my cousin said he thought it was the best one of the three, to which I promptly asked him what was he smoking and/or what movie did *he* just watch. Everything Nick mentioned about the movie and his lack of enthusiasm/trepidation over what comes next is exactly what I’m feeling right now. What I’ve heard of the next Thor movie doesn’t interest me in the slightest, Cap’s movie could go either way, and Guardians just frightens me b/c I’m expecting the casual movie audience to have the same reaction to it and all the “superhero space stuff” as Green Lantern. Mind you, this is coming from a non-comic-book guy, so that might have a lot to do with it.

    Honestly, though, I don’t have any excitement for a movie past Man of Steel. I’m super-pumped (heh) for that flick; sadly though, my being anxious for any of the other confirmed Marvel movies being released in the next year or so at this point is pretty light…

  13. It’s nice to see I’m not completely alone in being underwhelmed. Again, the movie wasn’t terrible, but I really feel like the tone shifted to something less related to the comics. I always felt like I was in the Marvel Universe with the past movies, and Iron Man 3 felt more like one of the Marvel movies made by outside studios with dubious results. Like the last Spidey flick, almost.

    @Djcarr: I had not noticed that emerging trend, but it’s definitely interesting. BatBale lost his balls in that last flick so no shocker there, but Miss Potts saving the day was definitely forcing it.

  14. I agree with the majority of what you’ve said. I loathed what the Mandarin became, especially considering that the new “I’m a corporate guy that you screwed over and now I want revenge” villain was so boring. If I may also add the following to the mix.

    First, I really despised how the suits were only showcase at the very end. If you’re up on the canon, you know that the various suits are specialized for various scenarios. Space, water, Hulk. Each has one. I so wanted this movie to give each its due screen time, perhaps deflating various attacks. Cliche… sure. But man would that have been fun.

    Secondly, I watche dthe motion comic Xtremis prior to all this. If you haven’t do so. It’s a dark, gory mess of WTF. I know this wasn’t the main story line of the film, but it was there and horrible under utilized. Frankly, the animated Xtremis would’ve been a great live-action on its own. So who knows.

    So yeah… I wanted this so badly to break the mold. But it didn’t. It fell into the mold and died.

  15. I’ve actually avoided Extremis because from what I’ve read it’s a bit over the top for me. Like having Stark store the suit as nanites in his bones and instantly assemble itself on him like a symbiote is a bit further than I’m willing to take the armor upgrades. I was annoyed at the notion in the film that each little piece of armor was rocket propelled. The potential for any one of those pieces to take your head off seems to outweigh the cool factor there. What is so wrong with the classic Iron Man concept that they feel the need to make it more ridiculous and impractical all of the time?

  16. I agree with your sentiment, but I still think it was a fun movie. It was pretty cliché and rife with standard plot devices (but there is a reason they are so common, they work), but it did get me my sci-fi tech fix.

    I am definitely not a fan of the whole “retiring” Iron Man, made worse when I realized that there were going to be Avenger sequels as well, then added to what they did to the Mandarin. Disappointing.

    The trailer for Technovore is certainly appealing to convert to a live-action, but there is always a little more freedom with animated stories in that the biggest limit is imagination. I wonder how well it would translate and be received.

  17. I enjoyed it, though the opening music was awful. The first one is definitely the best. The worst marvel movie has to be Captain America. There was nothing in that movie that was at all good, apart from Hugo Weaving, and he was utilised terribly.

  18. I enjoyed it, and the biggest thing is… I feel that IM3 was really more about Tony as a person than about Iron Man, as a hero. We see him literally at wits end, suffering from severe anxiety (Something he may never be fully over).

    Along with that, I will admit, I am not the biggest Marvel fan to begin with, but… I like to see a bit of emotion from my favorite characters. Iron Man having emotions? Freaking cool. Not just the ‘I’m great, look at me, you all suck’ character. I liked it.

    Was it the best movie ever? Hell no. But I think it was a very GOOD movie. To do with his armours being destroyed? That was him going “I don’t need all of these. I’m going to build one suit and go with it.”

  19. See, the impression that the film gave me was that he was doing it so he could focus entirely on his relationship with Pepper, which would be fine if it wasn’t entirely out of character and he didn’t have another Avengers go-round to do. And after a giant battle where he clearly DID need all of those suits, I’m not sure the “I don’t need all of these” was hammered home in the most effective way.

  20. Two years on and two of your three hopes have indeed been borne out. The Dark World was just as ‘meh’ as the first Thor.
    And I’m glad I’m not the only one who hated that intro song.

  21. So it’s been awhile both Thor and cap came out to not horrible but not as good as the first movies, but guardians of the galaxy really did open up a whole new world for marvel and really interconnects the entire universe in my opinion, what are your thoughts?

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.