Prep yourself for a long post.
Part I: How I watch movies
I try to look at comic book movies from 3 different perspectives. First, just as a movie. Nothing more, nothing less, just a movie. Second, as a superhero movie. The hero vs. villain aspects, the action, the threat, the feel. Finally, as a comic book adaptation. How faithful was the film to the comics that inspired it? What did they change, and why were those changes made? Were they necessary for the film? Did it make the movie better? Could the movie have stayed closer to the books and still been as good? And that third category, of adaptations, is where films like The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises, and now Iron Man 3 disappoint me.
So, I guess I should start off with the first two. As a movie, it's pretty good. The first two-thirds or so were really fun to watch, and Tony Stark was as fun as ever. The ending is what throws it off course. Things don't make sense, things don't work together right, and things just don't end well. Pepper, Killian's death, the VP, Rhodey, just too many unexplained things that didn't make sense at the end. And I think a lot of that is bad direction by Shane Black.
Part 2: Why I didn't like it
As a superhero movie, slightly worse. The main villain was a joke, and Killian was just ridiculous. It felt very much in the vein of Spider-Man 3 and X-Men: The Last Stand with trying to do too much. The Mandarin, and Killian, and Hansen, and the Extremis Soldiers, and the Iron Patriot armor highjacked. There was a ton going on, and Killian himself was just too far gone. Combining the characters of Killian, Mandarin, and even some of Fin Fang Foom into Guy Pierce with Eric Whitaker's hair (only musicians will understand that reference) was just so much it was silly. Then they made him unkillable, with him standing up after the huge explosion to end all explosions, which reminded me too much of the end of Fantastic Four when Doom stood after Johnny's supernova. Then, after making him unkillable, somehow Pepper, now with her own superpowers, partakes in a sequence that is totally out of character, totally unnecessary, and totally silly, to somehow inexplicably kill this villain that just survived the only thing that's supposed to be able to kill him. None of it makes sense.
Also, Tony's arc reactor is supposed to be a power source. Like, the power source (apart from the Tesserect) to end all power sources. And he clearly had a ton, because the Iron Patriot armor had one, and each one of his individual suits at the end had one. And he's clearly been working on the tech, because the Avengers showed him powering Stark Tower for a year. So why did the Mark 42 power down? How was it out of power, and need to be re-charged? The power comes from the arc reactor. Doesn't make sense.
Part 3: Why I disliked it
Then, we get to the adaptation part. And you know what I'm going to say. I hate how they treated Mandarin. This is a character than comic book fans like me have been waiting for 6 years to see in a movie, and we've been promised the whole time that he'll be brought in later and it will all be worth it. But it didn't happen. Not like it should have. That character is too important in the comics, and was made too important in the franchise, to be treated like that. And unfortunately, the most probably cause for it was because the Director didn't like the character. Stupid reason to ruin a movie that could have been so great. The Mandarin could have been a villain to rival Loki and the Joker, but they made him a stupid drunk actor. And then to add insult to injury, they have Killian say that he's the real Mandarin, which doesn't line up at all with the first two movies. Why create the 10 Rings organization and steal Stark weapons if Killian was the head of AIM and was working on Extremis? Why work with Obadiah Stane and Ivan Vanko to kill Stark when Killian clearly had the means to do so himself? But didn't actually kill him when he had the chance. Again, none of it makes sense.
To jump off of that bridge, it didn't really seem like it followed any of the previous films well. This was supposed to be the first movie ever that was a sequel to two separate movies: Iron Man 2 and The Avengers. Instead we get a tiny subplot about PTSD/anxiety attacks, a few lines mentioning "the wormhole" or "aliens" or "new york," and a lousy Bruce Banner cameo (who they decided to not even make look like the Banner from the Avengers. Again, lazy direction) to reference Avengers. No reference to Stark Tower, no explanation for why he's not at least attempting to contact other heroes, nothing significant. As far as Iron Man 1/2, no mention of Stane, or Hammer, or Vanko, the Stark Expo, Coulson, Christine Everhart, or Howard Stark.Or the continuing development of the arc reactor technology and the new element Tony created. All part of a stream of consciousness between the first and second films that was ignored in the third. Heck, Howard Stark was a big deal in the Iron Man films before they even had a actor to fully portray the role, but after you get Captain America: TFA and a solid actor to play Howard Stark for years to come, you decide not to include him in Iron Man. Sensing a theme here? DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. And again, I blame a lot of this on Shane Black, for not following the plan that Jon Favreau laid out.
Part 4: Why it matters
Aside from everything else, there's something more that scares me. Marvel Studios have never, before this film, blatantly and repeatedly lied to the public about the film. That's something DC does, and I've always looked down on them for it because Marvel Studios managed to keep their secrets hidden, and admit it when they were exposed. But this whole Mandarin thing destroyed that integrity that they had. It's not even that they deceived us for the sake of preserving the plot twist, its more than that. Ben Kingsley was in interviews talking about playing the Mandarin and how he was an anarchist and trying to promote chaos and trying to turn civilization on its head -- all of that was complete, dishonest, bold-faced horse sh*t. And it's not even like they had Ben Kingsley talk about the character than Guy Pierce was playing, because his character didn't match that either. So they just constructed these elaborate lies to market the movie. A lot of the marketing used dialogue that wasn't in the movie to build up the lie of the Mandarin even more. "Do you want an empty life, or a meaningful death." Great line. Great delivery. Great emotion. Not used. And not even usable in the context of the film. Waste. "Ladies. Gentlemen. Sheep." Another line used as hype for a lie. 'Today is the first day of what's left of your life." The marketing all focused on Mandarin making things personal for Tony, and it was all BS. Additionally, Guy Pierce stated his character was in the film as a "glorified cameo." Another blatant lie, that didn't even serve the plot twist. Just more lies.
The only way Marvel Studios can save this film, and save the Mandarin, is to make him someone else. Have another actor portray the real (like, really real) Mandarin, as someone who was either really high up or like, a myth/legend type person, like Thor or Loki, that resurfaces. Portray Killian as still being a needy whiny loser, who took the name as a way to feel more powerful, then cast the actor Trevor to take the spotlight off of him, but have the real Mandarin come in later. With that, you redeem the character, redeem the integrity, and possibly redeem my respect. It's also the only reason to do another Iron Man movie. Maybe Raza (from Iron Man 1, they never clearly showed what happened to him) takes the moniker of Mandarin post-IM3 as a way to build off the fear that already existed. Maybe Hammer is still around and he stumbles onto something. Or Vanko. Maybe the Mandarin has really just been behind the scenes that are behind the scenes. Something. Do something. Don't leave it this low. Save it.
Part 5: Why it scares me
The last thing I'm going to rant about (for now) is my fear of where the focus will be from now on. Marvel Studios gained popularity because of their willingness to stay truer to the comics than Sony and Fox and WB do, and they made the movies for the fans that read their comic books. But after the Avengers, I don't think that they'll care for that group anymore. If response to IM3 is positive, and there are a majority of viewers that don't know the Mandarin, and therefore don't know how terribly he was treated, and also aren't active enough viewers to understand the inconsistencies of the film, then Marvel Studios might just start making money buckets and throwing integrity out the window. I'm hoping that's not so. I'm hoping this is more on Shane Black than anyone else, and Kevin Feige and everyone else are still hoping to keep the MCU what it is and not make it the next trash franchise. But IM3 was supposed to be the big start for Phase 2, and it disappointed. Hard. Thor 2 has a chance to redeem the franchise later this year, and I hope it does.
The movie had some really great scenes, and most of it was fun to watch. I loved seeing Yinsen again, and connecting that dot to the original film (one of the few that they did). I liked the Air Force One scene, even though they built it up a little too much. And RDJ did wonderful as Stark again, and I liked watching that. But I wouldn't eat a cookie that had crap in with the chocolate.
For reference, I rate this film above TDKR, but below TASM, and the worst of all MCU movies.
Please comment. Any questions about the film, and questions about what I said, anything I forgot, anything I was wrong about, anything anything anything, I want to talk about this with people!
Part II
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