This movie had the second highest weekend box office of all time (behind only The Avengers), far outpaced the first two films in the series, and is tearing up the international box office. And yet…does it matter that it’s just not very good? Or not only “not very good,” I would say arguably the weakest of the three films, and certainly no better than the creatively-disappointing Iron Man 2. The first Iron Man will always be a solid B+, but I’m now starting to feel like this is a bad franchise built around a good, breezy first movie. [Maybe you could say that about all franchises, but there’s rarely so little substance in even the first film.]
What Works: The distinguishing factor of the Iron Man movies has always been their sense of humor. And Downey gets off a few great one-liners here. There’s a scene where he “mentors” a child of divorce about his feelings that was shockingly hilarious. The director (Shane Smith) will probably always be better at handling light-caper-dialogue than he will be at truly memorable action sequences. And Rebecca Hall’s character (Stark’s ex-girlfriend) could have been pretty interesting if they’d given her something to do.
What Doesn’t Work: There’s a going-through-the-motions, let’s-just-get-the-cash-register-open smell coming off this thing so strong, it stinks. The action sequences felt tired (I nearly fell asleep during the climactic battle at a shipyard…something that feels robbed from the Lethal Weapon movies, which Shane Smith wrote). The film’s handling of the Mandarin is ultimately disappointing—–this guy is one of Iron Man’s top villains in the comics but Ben Kingsley’s incarnation (while clever) leaves something to be desired. Robert Downey Jr. refuses to connect with anyone on screen with him and continues his streak as Johnny-Depp-in-a-bad-way, a once interesting actor now just showing up for the paycheck in forgettable franchise films.
But, most importantly, may be the film’s messaging to its audience. The true villain in this movie is a defense contractor (just like Sam Rockwell and Jeff Bridges in the first two movies), so this series is now three for three in saying America’s real enemy is its own war profiteers…yet Iron Man/Tony Stark is one too. The films aren’t sharp enough to even reference the irony of a war profiteer being brought in to deal with a worse one, which pretty much means there would be nothing for Iron Man to fight if his entire industry stopped existing. The message of “there’s no real threat, that’s why we’re creating threats” isn’t the one delivered to young boys so much as saying “bam! bam! ka-blooey! kill them! more weapons! America killing terrorists!”
What I Would Have Done Differently: Marvel doesn’t care. They’ve now become the least interesting studio. They’re a cash register. If their films deliver at the box office, they’re successful. If their films are mediocre, they wouldn’t know the difference because they’ve hardly made anything else.