Fast forward to the present where Tony narrates how he's a different man now. He's tinkering endlessly on some new technology, a suit that can be called from a distance. In what seems like a pretty forced piece of exposition Tony informs us that in the aftermath of "New York" he's desperate to protect the one thing he can't live without. That would be Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow), who listens dutifully. As a result he's not sleeping and begun to suffer anxiety attacks.
Meanwhile someone called The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) has suddenly become America's most wanted. He breaks into national TV broadcasts and sounds dire warnings about the end, sending the always day-late-and-a-dollar-short national security apparatus into full hissy-fit mode. Shortly afterward, over at Stark headquarters, our long lost pal from Switzerland suddenly shows up hocking his think tank's latest techno breakthrough "extremis" to CEO Potts. Pepper is amazed and more than a little turned on. Are you seeing this Tony?
At this point we're not exactly sure what "extremis" does but we're pretty sure it's not your standard iphone app. Shortly thereafter Tony's head of security Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) is seriously injured when a suspicious character he's been following suddenly turns into a human candle then explodes. It's a damn good thing Tony's been a-tinkering and managed to developed those 40+ Iron Man suits equipped with his latest "Come 'ere boy!" technology. Something tells me he's going to need them.
After his buddy is injured Tony gets personal and broadcasts his intention to take down the Mandarin and provides his address in case the bearded one is up for some old fashion fisticuffs. He's not really. What he does instead is send his minions in helicopters with air to ground missiles to take out Tony's Malibu house, sending it plunging into the ocean in a billion pieces. The worst part of the whole attack is watching poor Jarvis twitching in his mechanical patheticness as Tony and the Saucer Section slide into the ocean. Thankfully no one is hurt (miraculously it seems, not even Jarvis) though the world now believes Tony went down with the ship.
Though Tony survives the prototype suit he's wearing has more software glitches than windows Vista. He needs to regroup and so finds somebody's old workshop garage and settles in. Thing is those workshop garages tend to belong to people and it turns out this one is guarded by a local kid who the Disney marketing department told the producers the series badly needed.
From here the story becomes one of Tony getting back on his feet and facing down the menace, which he does with the help of those 40-odd spare suits, the moral support of the kid from marketing and some old-fashioned, Hollywood illogic (as in: arch villain captures hero but neglects to kill him after vowing repeatedly to do just that). Downey plays his role with his usual aplomb and the supporting characters - now comfortably familiar with the drill - all do their best to earn their enormous paychecks while shouldering the burden of the story's narrative twists (of which there are a couple of interesting ones and a couple you can see coming several miles away).
Make no mistake, Iron Man 3 is better than Iron Man 2 but it lacks the sense of surprise that made the original a must-see event for pop-culture vultures. It certainly kept my attention throughout (though it sagged noticeably in the middle) and devotees of the franchise will probably love it. Nonetheless it's become so incredibly predictable in spots and the writers have had to go to such absurd lengths to try and keep it fresh that it seems like we've reached the end of something with this film, and maybe we have. (Where do you go from 40+ suits?) Paltrow herself when asked about IM4 recently said “I don’t think there’s going to be [an Iron Man 4]. I think we’re done with Iron Man.” Iron man was never, after all, a top tier superhero character and in this film, with the sense of freshness just a fond memory, it's beginning to show. Left to his own devices IM cannot carry a story on his back like, say, Batman can. He needs help. In the case of this movie, lots of it. So much in fact that there are times during the film where Stark feels like a supporting character himself.
To at least some degree Iron Man 3 suffers as a direct result of the success of "The Avengers". While the character had a resurgence of sorts in that movie following the disappointing IM2, it was, it seems now, a false dawn. It worked because in that flm he was little more than a smart ass counter point to the rest of the cast: classic comic relief. Gimli. Here he's back in the spotlight alone and I'm left thinking; "The Avengers sure was a great flick."
Verdict: ★★★☆☆
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