Blockbuster aesthetics and a bottomless money machine feed Iron Man 3, the latest installment of the Marvel Comics movie franchise. But for all its fanboy accoutrements, the movie also plays on themes of disconnection. So why did I not really connect with it?
“We create our own demons.” Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) begins the film with this bit of introspection. The filthy rich humanitarian-cum-superhero has a reputation for saving the world, but also for being self-centered. I would love to be invested in a superhero arc, or to be moved to follow a hero’s rise and fall and rise again. But in the past year of superheroes, only the coming-of-age theme in The Amazing Spider-Man gave me a hero worth believing in. Robert Downey Jr.? He’s likable enough, but his relationships in Iron Man 3, despite his signature character flaw, left me little reason to care if he saves the world.
Some of the elements are there, but the metallurgic bonds fail to congeal. Throughout the series, Tony has struggled to balance his work with his relationships, often neglecting the unfortunately named Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, recently named Most Beautiful Schoolteacher in the World by a panel of highly compensated shills). Their first meeting in the film is typical. Pepper comes home to find Stark on the couch in his suit, but his smart-alecky repartee sounds distracted. There’s a reason. Pepper soon finds that the suit that rubbed her shoulders is actually a decoy, controlled from the basement lair in which Tony works on his pecs while sending his disembodied charge to take care of his wife. None of us are superheroes with iron man suits, but the way that we use technology to avoid real human contact is a signature crisis of the age.
Disconnection is a great modern theme, but the stars’ lack of chemistry doesn’t sell it. In the world of Iron Man 3, whether this cool relationship succeeds or fails doesn’t seem like a pressing concern, in large part because Paltrow’s Potts has all the allure of a stick figure with lipstick.
And that’s is the central relationship. A minor relationship with the rebranded War Machine, Iron Patriot (Don Cheadle) hints at the buddy movies that launched writer-director Shane Black’s career. But the sparkling buddy banter mixed amid chaotic violence that Black delivered so fluently through Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon series is seldom heard here. Downey and Cheadle are both capable actors, but if it’s there, I didn’t hear it.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey, Jr. (Walt Disney Studios)As the fetish for technology plunders on, the movie also looks at a mythical American past, coming at moment when Stark’s protective shell is compromised. A contrast to the horrific modern architecture of his Malibu cliff-side lair, he finds himself deposited on a snowy night in a small Tennessee town. Unprepared for the cold weather, Stark takes a blanket from a cigar store Indian at a Texaco station, modern man stripping indigenous beauty of its warmth in a location right out of Normal Rockwell. Here Stark befriends a boy. Well, I won’t get into the details but it wasn’t the only part of the movie that reminded me of Shane’s infamous dud The Last Action Hero, which I enjoyed more than Iron Man 3. Still, these small-town scenes are the movie’s best, and come closest to finding the elusive human connection that the series lacks.
About that protective shell. Animal imagery runs through the movies plot lines. Stark’s Iron Man suit is obviously a cocoon, so obvious that Black doesn’t have to have Stark spell it out for audiences. The regeneration of limbs also plays a key role. For all of our technological advances humanity still finds their bodies inadequate, and attempts to push the body past its natural breaking point end in disaster. A subplot that addresses media manipulation is interesting, but kind of disingenuous. A comic book movie fueled by deep pockets and fanboy investment dares to broach media manipulation?
This is only Black’s second film as a director. His excellent Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) also starred Downey, and that comic crime drama hit all its marks of entertainment and human connection. I wanted to like Iron Man 3, and enjoyed it more than Jon Favreau’s efforts. Things blow up, Stark comes to the rescue, and fan boys will probably love it. The script gives lip service to human relationships in the end, but those moments are not nearly as sturdy as Tony Stark’s armor.
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Directed by Shane Black
Written by Shane Black and Drew Pearce
With Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce, Don Cheadle, Ben Kingsley
Rated PG-13 for sequences of flippant superhero remarks, metal-clad dudes brawling and blowing up, and brief suggestive content
Running time 129 minutes
