The Iron Man 3 Movie Review – Shane Black and the Black Guy

The first Iron Man movie was a blockbuster smash hit and paved the way for many Marvel sequels. The second film starred Robert Downey Jr. in the title role and grossed over $1.9 billion at the box office. It also featured the debut of a character that has become synonymous with the franchise: War Machine. After a long hiatus, Shane Black (KISS KISS BANG BANG) returned to direct the third installment and co-write its screenplay with Drew Pearce. Black brought a sense of style to the film, keeping it looking clean and crisp even when there was a lot of special effects and CGI on display.

After his father’s death, young Tony Stark builds a suit of armor to protect his own life, and he names it “Iron Man.” After the terrorist group the Ten Rings captures civilians in Gulmira, Afghanistan, Stark uses the Iron Man armor to rescue them. After the mission, he is offered a job as a mercenary-for-hire by a SHIELD contact named James Rhodes.

Rhodes is a former United States Air Force test pilot who was severely wounded in an accident while saving his crewmates on a mission in Vietnam. He is a PTSD sufferer who has trouble concentrating and he finds solace in his hobby of building and flying planes. After his first assignment as Iron Man, he begins to reclaim his life and develops a more intimate relationship with his wife Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).

While he is off-duty, Rhodes gets a call from his SHIELD boss, General Fury, who asks him to help track down a terrorist called the Mandarin. When he is promoted to Colonel and his new armor is painted red, white and blue, Rhodes renames himself War Machine. He later uses the armor to wreak havoc on a shadowy terrorist organization and rescues the president.

The movie’s main villain, Aldrich Killian, is played by Guy Pearce. In an interview with Uproxx, Black revealed that in his original drafts of the script, the Killian character was a woman. Marvel convinced him that a female antagonist wouldn’t sell as well as a male one, though, so he changed the character to a man and gave him the name Mandarin.

RDJ is once again outstanding as Stark and it is his performance that elevates the film. However, the story is a bit silly and obvious, and there isn’t quite enough depth to this film. Other characters are a bit of a bore and the film doesn’t quite live up to its predecessors or The Avengers.

Other cast members include Jon Favreau as Stark’s friend and bodyguard Happy Hogan, Jeff Bridges as Stark’s business second-in-command, and a cameo appearance from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello. Iron Man co-creator Stan Lee makes a cameo as himself and investor Jim Cramer is also seen in the film. In addition, rapper Ghostface Killah has a scene in which he is beaten by the Mandarin.