Iron Man 3 (SPOILERS)

[kate_nepveu]

Now for the spoiler version. Probably there's little new to be said, but I want to talk anyway. In whatever order things come to me (I'm really tired).

First: holy FUCK, the absolutely inspired multi-level TROLLING that is the Mandarin!

When I heard about it and decided to try to see the movie, I was actually trying to ramp my expectations down, because I thought that just knowing the twist might make it less effective and I didn't want to be disappointed. But that turns out to have been totally unnecessary, because instead I got to admire the way it was very subtly being set up and then how hilarious the reveal was.

I just cannot believe (1) that it didn't leak and (2) that Marvel let them do that. Marvel let them make a movie that explicitly argued that one of its most prominent villains is a racist fantasy created by and fed off of US fears. I actually think that is more daring than just a current-politics statement.

And it was so, so funny on a non-meta/political level, too.

Second: Tony coming full circle. Those credits really drove home the message that this was what this movie was doing, completing a trilogy and a character arc—"I am Iron Man," indeed—something that was present throughout the movie. Yinsen cameo! 1999 to present! No more Malibu house, no more armor as security blanket post-Afghanistan, actually being a better person, though still himself (that rabbit, dealing with the kid), emphatically not going it on his own.

Third: Pepper. Absolutely the case that there was too much of her in distress, as other people have said, but otherwise totally awesome and I love them together (which still boggles me, considering the first two movies).

Fourth: Maya. Whhhhhyyyyy didn't (the movie let) you stab yourself with the Extremis dose after you were shot? You were interesting and I would have liked to see more of you.

Fifth: Extremis. As far as I'm concerned, Pepper still has it, Tony does too—I thought at first he did not, but otherwise the whole plot of IM2 is even worse than it appeared, if he could have surgery to remove the shrapnel at any time—but Tony does not have comics-version Extremis that lets him call up the armor out of his bones or whatever it is, because (a) there is nothing in the movie version of Extremis to support that and (b) the whole movie is about Tony realizing he doesn't need the suit to be Iron Man, so making him and the suit literally one would be entirely counter to that theme.

Sixth: Extremis otherwise is sadly kind of a mess and the worst of the movie's problems, in its handling of the vets and the Vice President. Shallowly, the effect of it was a little too Terminator for me at times. But it could really have used just a few lines to humanize the people being experimented on. There were some gestures in the direction of most of them not being blamed: addiction, not bombs but misfires, Tony talking with the Tenn. soldier's mom. But why the people kept at it when they saw it blowing up other soldiers, and how many of them were really on board with Killian and what he told them they were doing, and that the Vice President was really willing to assassinate the President because his young relative was in a wheelchair . . . it does end up sending a "ANYTHING but being disabled!!" message, and that is not cool.

I mean, I could make an argument about people literally blowing up because the US government let them down, but they seem to have been sent to AIM from the military (that file stamp), presumably to participate in the research, so that doesn't actually seem to work.

Seventh: I have seen criticisms of the action scenes and the pacing, and I was surprised to disagree. I was fully prepared for the all-the-suits scene to be loud and boring and go on way too long, but instead I enjoyed it. I liked seeing Tony jump from suit to suit and use them improvisationally, and I didn't think it dragged except for the dangling-Pepper bits. And I really liked that there was so much of Tony Macgyver-ing it; I suspect I much prefer my superheroes scrappy and desperate (as I did with SGA), and so all of that was catnip to me. And there was that and the Malibu house and that was really it for huge-spectacle sequences; the Tenn. fight with the Terminators Extremis soldiers was a lot more personal and small-scale.

Eighth: I just had so much fun with all the banter and the character interactions and even the slapstick, I admit, so I would probably be pretty forgiving about the pacing regardless, but still, I do think the last big fight was fine.

Ninth: people who know panic attacks say that Tony's were pretty realistic, which is good to know.

Tenth: I can't believe I haven't mentioned Rhodey yet, but basically he was great, that's all I have to say.

Eleventh: the line about the Mandarin not being a superhero problem was not entirely convincing as a way to keep the rest of the Avengers out of things, but at least they tried? Thor obviously is elsewhere, and Bruce is really not the person for this problem (though that post-credits scene made me incredibly happy). But either Natasha and Clint are doing super-spy stuff to try and find the Mandarin, or there is some EPIC pissing match going on with the US gov't and SHIELD (which would make sense, with the whole "tried to nuke Manhattan" thing). (Steve is . . . working on improving veterans' healthcare.)

Twelfth: the only thing I really liked about the first movie was his relationship with his 'bots, and I was actually upset when they were screebling around the floor when the house was falling into the ocean, so I was really glad that he rescued them.

. . . no, I can't actually make it a baker's dozen, at least not in my current state. What have I forgotten?

Comments

[kingrat]

I really enjoyed the scenes where Tony Stark fought in partial armor, or where it didn't completely work. So much better than clanking full armor fights which don't have as much creativity.

Some of the logical plot holes bothered me. Why would Tony not have removed the shrapnel if he could have? Why intentionally not use one of his spare suits when #42 was down for the count?

Loved how they did the Mandarin character.

[oracne]

I don't think Tony could remove the shrapnel without Extremis - I seem to recall from the comics that there's way too much of it, so surgery might kill him.

[kate_nepveu]

I have done some investigating re: Tony & heart surgery, because this bugged me.

The voiceover says that he "got Pepper sorted out" and then that he thought, "why stop there?" Then he says that yeah, there are "people who say progress is dangerous," but that none of them "ever had to live with a chest full of shrapnel."

So I think the reference to "progress" only makes sense as dosing himself with Extremis, and that he couldn't have done it before. But there is a psychological argument to be made about his state in _IM2_ (fatalistic, trying to go it alone) that would support that Extremis wasn't necessary if people disagree with my reading of that line. I guess we'll have to wait and see; apparently even though his contract is up he's widely expected to be in _Avengers 2_.

[leighdb]

Re: the Mandarin being a fake thing: Okay, so (a) I very assiduously avoided spoilers before seeing the movie, as usual, and (b) I am only familiar with most of Marvel comics canon via osmosis, so I went into this movie having pretty much *no idea* who the Mandarin was except the vague awareness that he was a villain who existed.

So when we first see Ben Kingsley coming in to what was (to me) extremely obviously a film set, and Guy Pearce standing around looking all smug while everyone else was freaking out, I swear that the first thing I thought was, "Oh, I bet he's totally just an actor and Guy Pearce is really the Mandarin." And then I turned out to be right and I was like, "Ha, called it!"

And it wasn't until I started looking at the IM3 stuff on the Internet afterwards that I even realized that this was, like, a BIG DEAL, that the Mandarin wasn't the Mandarin. Because as far as I was concerned, this had totally been set up earlier in the movie when Tony comments on how the Mandarin's accent was all wrong and so forth. I guess it's just interesting, because I didn't have the preconceived notion that the Mandarin was really real and so I didn't ignore the foreshadowing the movie provided.

I was also incredibly *relieved* to find out I was right, because up to that point I was starting to get seriously uncomfortable with the implied endorsement of American racism/xenophobia the Mandarin's shtick seemed to be supporting. To find out it was a deliberate play on (and actually an explicit *indictment* of) that xenophobia, both by Guy Pearce's character and by the movie itself, was both brilliant and faith-restoring. So well done, IM3. Way to have your comics canon cake and yet not repeat the previous chefs' mistakes in serving it.

[mkozlows]

Did you see any of the ads for the movie? They were very much setting up the Mandarin, and Guy Pearce didn't exist in them at all.

I am 99.9% extremely happy they did the Mandarin like they did, and the only thing I miss is that the comic Mandarin has alien/magic rings, and I wish those had been included somehow. There could have been something cool in having Tony confront alien/magic stuff again given his earlier breakdown about having to face that kind of thing.

[leighdb]

When I commit to avoiding spoilers, I COMMIT to avoiding spoilers. As in, I didn't watch the trailers, and fastforwarded the commercials, and didn't read/watch any of the cast or crew interviews, and didn't read any reviews either. This is SOP for me for a movie I know for sure I'm going to see regardless of its reception, because it's much more enjoyable for me to go into a movie with as few pre-conceived notions possible of either what it's about or what other people thought of it. That way I get to form my own untainted opinion - and hopefully be much more surprised by what happens.

[mkozlows]

Although ironically, here it made you less surprised...

(I actually thought, after that early walking-in scene, that the Mandarin was working for Guy rather than vice versa, and that'd be the big surprise. The actual thing still surprised me.)

[leighdb]

Although ironically, here it made you less surprised...

Well, yes. But still more enjoyable.

[orzelc]

Re: alien magic rings, I'd be in favor only if they brought in this guy:

http://doodiepants.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Ancient-Aliens-Meme-Hair-Guy-017.jpg

Who, really, would be perfect as a scientist in a Marvel Universe movie.

[oracne]

There is a close shot of Kingsley's hand, and he is wearing a lot of weird rings. So I am wondering if that was a setup for the future.

[kate_nepveu]

I figured it was just playing the part.

[orzelc]

I liked the reveal a lot, and was surprised, but not completely blown away. It also occurs to me that the first of Nolan's Batman movies did something similar with its villain. Not to the same length, or for the comedy of it, but then that's the difference between Christopher Nolan and Shane Black.

[coffeeandink]

The Batman Begins reveal is a similar plot move, but it has a completely different meaning. Ras al'Ghul isn't depicted as a deliberate racist construct; he's the white guy who performs the exotic brown functions better than brown people could, which is just as racist from a different direction.

[kate_nepveu]

Whoa. Amazing.

The publicity was all about the Mandarin. And that was why I wasn't going to see it, because it's hideously racist, and I couldn't fathom it--why did Kingsley let them cast him? Why did Shane Black--who'd been on record as previously saying that the Mandarin was hideously racist--turn around and make this movie? And then it turned out it was _all on purpose_, that Kingsley was deliberately cast as someone with the "wrong" ethnicity and that Black was making the movie to deliberately point out how hideously racist it was! Such AMAZING trolling.

[leighdb]

Also, re: your question on what the other Avengers were doing, I saw a comment elsewhere on how hard they played up the timing of the movie (Christmas), and the speculation that the other sequels might make a point of being set in the same time frame, so as to explain why all the other Avengers were too busy to go help Tony. I don't know if that's actually the case but it would be nice if so.

[kate_nepveu]

I know they did that before, but I actually find it more contrived than "giant turf pissing match." Mostly I'm willing to accept the handwave.

[rilina]

I quibbled about the absence of the other Avengers, but at the same time I'm also happy to handwave it--the character arc worked for me, even if the plot logic was a little shaky, and in general, character is more important than plot to me.

Tony as the mechanic = <3.

[kate_nepveu]

Contrast to genius billionaire playboy philanthropist!

[coffeeandink]

I am convinced that IM3, CA2, and Thor 2 will happen simultaneously, the way The Hulk, IM2, and Thor did. Natasha and Steve are looking for Bucky, Thor is off-planet, everyone is reluctant to use Bruce for less than planet-leveling threats, and let's face it, Clint is not actually that useful.

That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it until it is conclusively disproven.

[kate_nepveu]

I think the only movie that *needs* to take place concurrently is _Cap 2_, because where is Steve?--musesfool is quite right that he should have been on Air Force One--and that's not for another year, and if this is supposed to be ~6 months after _Avengers_ (I'm assuming that this is the first Christmas after not the second) then that seems kind of collapsing things when it comes to how long _Avengers 2_ will be after _Avengers_.

But everyone finds some things more contrived than others, and for some reason I'd rather have the handwave that this is not a superhero problem, Tony needs to stay off-grid for a bit, etc., than that large-scale alien destruction is happening without anyone telling Tony and anyone talking about it. (The Winter Soldier stuff would be easier to handwave not telling Tony in this movie since it would be all super-secret spy things.)

Did I just talk myself into being okay with _Cap 2_ being simultaneous with this? Well, okay. About a year to find out!

[thatlitgirl]

“and let's face it, Clint is not actually that useful.”

They could get some mileage out of a Hawkeye movie as a regular action-adventure film, though. (Also, I want to see Kate Bishop.)

[musesfool]

I'm guessing Steve and Natasha are wandering around eastern Europe fighting Hydra and looking for Bucky, i.e., Steve gets the worst/best Christmas present ever. Otherwise, he should have been on that plane with the POTUS, right? Unless SHIELD and the US govt are in a pissing match over jurisdiction or something, which is also entirely possible.

But why the people kept at it when they saw it blowing up other soldiers, and how many of them were really on board with Killian and what he told them they were doing, and that the Vice President was really willing to assassinate the President because his young relative was in a wheelchair . . . it does end up sending a "ANYTHING but being disabled!!" message, and that is not cool.

Yeah, I don't really get this? My understanding, on reading reviews after seeing it, was that the soldiers blowing up were mistakes, and Killian was spinning them as terrorist attacks in order to somehow get the govt to buy his (seriously faulty) product to fight it. I'm not sure why the disabled soldiers were going for it, without some explanation as to how they wanted to go back to serving their country or something. I don't think they were being blamed, but I also don't know how much they knew about what was actually happening, so maybe they thought they were just in another version of a supersoldier program? Which would have tied in nicely to the rest of the universe, and then it would just be the people closest to Killian who knew the real deal - the one Happy trails (no pun intended), the scarred lady in Tennessee, the woman in the sweatshop who captures Rhodey. The rest were just dupes.

Otoh, superhero stories are always FULL of endless henchmen for canon fodder and I have never understood that. Who signs up to work for AIM or the Joker or whoever? YOU KNOW THAT NEVER ENDS WELL.

[kate_nepveu]

You are quite right that Captain America should have been on Air Force One, so while I still think giant pissing match is possible and my preferred resolution, because I find simultaneity weirdly more difficult to accept than the movie's handwaves, plus the timelines would go all weird, but I seemed to have talked myself into accepting _Cap 2_ as simultaneous if that's where they go, above.

I did like the one henchman who was like, "no, I'm out of here, these guys are weird," but why limit motive and personality to him?

[thatlitgirl]

There was a one henchperson who did that? Damn, must’ve missed it. (To be fair, midnight screenings aren’t really my thing.)

[kate_nepveu]

There was, I believe when Tony and Rhodey had joined forces in the Florida mansion, but the line was pretty close to that.

[mmcirvin]

Unfortunately, they managed to bother people in China anyway by adding special extra-Chinese scenes to the Chinese release... scenes that are apparently really dumb and contrived:

http://kotaku.com/why-many-in-china-hate-iron-man-3s-chinese-version-486840429

[kate_nepveu]

Well that's ridiculous and sadly unsurprising.

[rosefox]

PEPPER IN THE SUIT was the best thing EVER. That faceplate going up and a woman's face under it! ZOMG. I really hope she hasn't somehow been "cured" of her superpowers, because her getting powers to match or surpass Tony is so much better than the idea of him throwing his toys away to bring himself down to her level.

Tony as mechanic makes me really happy. Really, really happy.

This was a profoundly meta movie. All those digs about dealing with anxiety and PTSD by distracting yourself are digs at consumers of media, and so is the entire Mandarin storyline. The post-credits scene tells you that this story you just sat through two hours of is so boring it'll put you to sleep! I actually lost track of the self-references.

I also thought the handling of culture-wide shock after a major event was really good. Life goes on completely as normal except that everyone is unsettled, all the time. Are the aliens coming back? No one knows! It's one thing to have superheroes, that's just part of living in the future and it all has some quasi-sciencey stuff behind it, but a god fell out of the sky, WTF! (There must be fanfic about how adherents of various religions coped with that.)

Also, I read the file stamp as actually being "MIA"--as in, the military had no idea what happened to him. AIM seemed to only take on people who were truly desperate and fucked in the head. I agree it would have been nice to see portrayals of disabled people who weren't truly desperate and fucked in the head.

Maya. Whhhhhyyyyy didn't (the movie let) you stab yourself with the Extremis dose after you were shot?

Maybe she did just after she fell out of sight? I could see that being left as a tiny loophole. I thought she was quite wonderful.

[kate_nepveu]

Hmmm, I think you're right, because the stamp was "MIA" on the _front_ of the paper, right, so the reversal was jolting Tony's memory not A Clue.

I would like to think Maya is alive--as coffeeandink has said somewhere, Coulson was far more dead, but I hold out little hope.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I did take it that Extremis (and possibly some improvements in medical tech and a very powerful external magnet) made the surgery viable. It may have still been 'chancy', but less so than horrid numbers before.

I'm not concerned about Steve not being with POTUS. I figure he's getting up to speed with various developments in military tech and training, doing some meet and greets with active troops and vets dealing in other ways with their injuries. And, both pouring over intel while not being anywhere to be a patsy for the Mandarin's theatrics. Somewhere in there is probably the lead for the Winter Solider, which becomes a pressing issue for him and Natasha. And, if you were the VP and hatching a dastardly plan, wouldn't you make sure Captain America isn't about?

I guess I'm more okay with Pepper in peril, partly because That Scene With Ironman Like Nut Stretched Over Tony, and because Aldrich is specifically being a mustache twirling villain. And, she gets to deal with Aldrich herself. Tony has been running himself ragged wanting to protect her (and like a doofus invites the destruction of the Malibu home) he fails to save her from the plummet and then she saves herself.

I'm a little in a tossup about Maya in 1999 since Tony really is being an ass, but maybe he's a bit of a free pass piece of ass (he's not an academic, so less of the oh great I slept with someone on the interview panel ten years ago.)

Rhodey!