{"id":2176,"date":"2013-05-07T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T19:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/?p=2176"},"modified":"2013-05-14T11:58:28","modified_gmt":"2013-05-14T18:58:28","slug":"iron-man-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/2013\/05\/07\/iron-man-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Man 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IronMan3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Directed by: Shane Black
\nStarring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley, Rebecca Hall, Jon Favreau, Paul Bettany (voice), Ty Simpkins
\nRated: PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence throughout, and brief suggestive content<\/p>\n

Iron Man is back, this time in his own movie \u2013 but in an unusual move for an action flick, the events of his previous film (the record-setting \u201cThe Avengers\u201d) are not only mentioned but having negative consequences for his mental health. He doesn\u2019t have time to sit around and deal with his issues, though \u2013 there\u2019s a new villain on the scene, and he makes things personal for Tony very, very quickly.<\/p>\n

If you somehow haven\u2019t seen any of the previous Iron Man films, or \u201cThe Avengers,\u201d you are likely doing yourself a disservice. Even non-comic-book-fan folks who enjoy big action movies generally love them (with the possible exception of \u201cIron Man 2,\u201d which was rather lackluster in the writing department). However, you can probably enjoy \u201cIron Man 3\u201d without having seen the previous films as long as you\u2019re aware that they exist and you\u2019re going in without full knowledge of the background. The important thing to know is that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), once a delightedly-immoral arms dealer and now a superhero and pioneer in green energy tech, nearly died in the last film.<\/p>\n

As usual, Downey plays the part perfectly, giving us the slightly manic glint of a man who\u2019s sleeping too little and trying to pretend it\u2019s not because he\u2019s terrified of what he\u2019ll see when he closes his eyes. It\u2019s refreshing to see a superhero movie deal with the actual psychological consequences of someone who is, for all intents and purposes, just a regular human, having far from regular experiences.<\/p>\n

Tony\u2019s issues, and his failure to deal with them in a healthy way, are putting a strain on his relationship with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). Paltrow has been one of the best things about this series since the beginning, and she nails her performance here. Pepper loves Tony, but part of what makes their relationship work is her refusal to put up with his nonsense \u2013 and that has the potential for serious consequences.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a terrorist calling himself The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) is taking credit for a series of mysterious explosions around the US \u2013 none of which seem to have actual bomb fragments involved at the scene. When it gets personal \u2013 and when you\u2019re dealing with a narcissist like Tony, everything is personal \u2013 Tony finds himself on the run, presumed dead, and with a nonfunctioning prototype suit of armor rather than one of his near-omnipotent awesome suits. He winds up in the middle of nowhere, teaming up with a kid (Ty Simpkins) who\u2019s passionate about engineering and helps Tony fix up the broken suit.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s pretty awesome to see this Tony Stark back in action, the one who built the first suit in a cave with a box of scraps. He winds up facing the baddies using improvised tech which looks bizarre but actually (mostly) works. It\u2019s also awesome to see Ben Kingsley really flexing his acting muscles here. Without giving too much away, let me just say that his performance in the second half of the film is a thing to delight even casual fans of his acting.<\/p>\n

Lastly, it wouldn\u2019t be an Iron Man movie without at least a few scenes of Tony and his suit blowing things up. While everything leading up to it is generally low on action, the big finale more than makes up for it, and it’s completely worth the wait. Rhodey (Don Cheadle), Tony, and the suits kick a lot of baddie behind, the special effects are glorious, and there are enough explosions to satisfy all but the most ardent pyrotechnic fans.<\/p>\n

In the end, whether you\u2019ll enjoy this movie or not depends on whether you like the Marvel Avengers movies or not. If you haven\u2019t seen any of them\u2026 well, I\u2019d say you\u2019ve been missing out. There are worse introductions than \u201cIron Man 3.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iron Man is back, this time in his own movie \u2013 but in an unusual move for an action flick, the events of his previous film (the record-setting \u201cThe Avengers\u201d) are not only mentioned but having negative consequences for his mental health. He doesn\u2019t have time to sit around and deal with his issues, though \u2013 there\u2019s a new villain on the scene, and he makes things personal for Tony very, very quickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[74,58,47,57],"class_list":["post-2176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-awesome","tag-comic-book","tag-fun","tag-rated-pg-13"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/IronMan3.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2oSX4-z6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2176"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2179,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176\/revisions\/2179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}