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Iron Man 3 Review
Eric Schaen (05/08/2013)
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Iron Man 3 ReviewThe films central & philosophical question is does the suit make the man or vice versa. Tony does some soul searching, teams up with an inventive kid and works on finding a way to stop the Mandarin and save the love of his life Pepper, who has been captured by the organization known as Advance Idea Mechanics or A.I.M. for short.

Iron Man 3 is not short on twists. For much of the film Tony is actually armor-less, which isn’t the problem. In fact, I rather enjoyed seeing Tony play the hero sans-armor it’s one of the more enjoyable parts of the movie. There is also a surprise with the revelation of the Mandarin, that like the character decrees, “You’ll never see coming”.

The problems with this flick manifest in the third act and continue throughout the films climax. This is where all the plot elements should come together. Instead, the plot disassembles itself, similarly to the Iron Man MK-42 armor.

Related: Eric's Amazing Spider-Man review


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Your Comments:
I agree with the mediocre rating. A few too many plot flaws and while the director was flashier it seems he couldn't nail down a 'feel' compared to Jon Favreau.

Although I quite enjoyed that Rhodey and Pepper had more heroic moments than Tony in the film, I had trouble with suspension of disbelief. For example, the MK 42 armor can fly on piece by piece. But then in the final scene Stark is shown commanding numerous other remote armors to fly onto him in the same way. Films should follow their own internal logic, and this did not.

On the clix front, I was horribly disappointed by the IM3 mini set. The MK 42 is going to seem indestructible to some characters, but the villains can't compete. Mandarin should be 15 pts and Killian was underpowered by far. Can't even breathe fire or regen and doesn't look cool, so what's the point? I think WizKids was probably hoaxed to avoid spoilers.

Posted by: Kragnorak on 5/30/2013 2:32:01 PM
So Shane couldn't get those 10 rings to work?

Posted by: Alien tech. dept. on 5/16/2013 1:36:16 AM
@ Joesitar

Great point! Yeah the Extremist soldiers seemed to be killed off way too easy compared to Killian and Pepper again with no explanation.

@ annoyinglizardvoice

Still makes no sense.

Posted by: Slade on 5/13/2013 1:45:19 PM
@ slade: the missile was a shaped explosion (like a lot of anti-tank and demolition stuff uses) and I'm assuming the exploady suit wasn't, so the second explosion would have separated the chunks of him out more than the previous. I was under the impression that how much was blown away from the extremis folks and how close the bits were are factors in whether they could regen or not.

Posted by: annoyinglizardvoice on 5/12/2013 10:07:23 AM
And on a Heroclix slant...
Having got a few of the IM3 clix it seems that Wizkids were allowed to watch the first 20 mins of the film and base their clix around that. A LOT of the dials powers and keywords bear little resemblance to their on screen counterparts. There are some lovely sculpts and dials, but for scenario play you can only re-enact the first 20 mins of movie (no bathroom-based poison power for the manderin alas!)

Posted by: Mantis Warrior on 5/10/2013 8:17:52 AM
we also have the part where rhodes was on the container fighting two extremis soldiers. and killed them by knocking them off and having them fall to the ground. then dropped the container causing an explosion(which was not necessarily where they fell.) and we were to assume they died. and yet when pepper fell to the ground and proceeded to have an explosion around her. she was just fine. correct me if im wrong but alot of the extremis deaths all seemed a bit weird. also with savin. he gets blown up by another extremis, totally fine. tony blows half his face off..... totally fine. tony shoots him through the heart., dead...

Posted by: Joesitar on 5/9/2013 1:59:36 PM
How much more ground zero can you get than being stuck inside an exploding suit of armor?

Posted by: Slade on 5/8/2013 6:26:56 PM
I disagree. I feel this one was generally a much better film than the second. The big twists were certainly ones I wasn't expecting, which is an improvement on a lot of superhero films. The complaint some folks have with the bad guy's death is a bit of a non-issue for me as the one he recovered from was more a case of just being caught in a generic explosion, where as the killing blow was ground-zero of a shaped explosion.

Posted by: annoyinglizardvoice on 5/8/2013 2:19:47 PM
So the number of times you can regenerate is two?

Posted by: Dr Silly on 5/8/2013 8:53:13 AM
I agree this is not the best of the three (always going to be no. 1 in any trillogy pretty much) but having just seen it with my wife (not a comics fan) it's her favourite of the three; so I guess the film succeeds on a different level.

I did like:
The Mandarin: seriously, best villain ever! Did not see it coming at all!
The multiple armours: so many I wish had been clixed, especially "Mr Stumpy"
The Extremis special effects.
The new, less ego-tripping Stark.

I didn't like
The mark 42 armour: so many cool suits and Tony only wears one all film (pretty much). The remote parts just looked silly.
The last fight: A bit too distant an angle, really wanted to see the new suits up close.

Oh as for the bad guy needing killing several times that made sense to me. Extremis wears off over time so you can regenerate x times before you need a new dose. If you can 'regulate' of course.

Posted by: Mantis Warrior on 5/8/2013 8:24:50 AM
@ Bgreyloc

Except, Thor is stronger and he had a much tougher time with Iron Man. Not to mention he hit Iron Man with lightning which can be as much as 54,000 degrees. In the movie they said the Extremist reached 3000 degrees. Sorry, but this was simply overlooked in the haste to make a worthy adversary.

You also failed to explain why you have to kill the bad guy twice the same way for it to work?

Posted by: Dr. Silly on 5/8/2013 7:29:02 AM
I disagree. You do point out some valid potential flaws. The amped up soldiers exibit escalating potential. Meaning, they, themselves, are not sure of what they are fully capable of. Which makes sense, since they were working undercover, and using subterfuge. Secondly, the man antagonist would have not contributed resources to perfecting any ones abilities but his own, and Pepper's. His personality screemed this, as his intentions became clear. Now, the bad guys ability to regenerate is on par with wolverine, and Their strength is demonstrated to be on par with the ironman armor, more than enough to damage the suit when you add in training and physics.

Posted by: bgreyloc on 5/8/2013 7:13:46 AM
Regardless of whether the movie stayed true to the source material, it was a disappointment. The use of the Mandarin was a cool idea, but came off more as a misdirection cheat. I agree with how the Iron Man armor appears too fragile in this film as compared to others.

Not terrible but not great.

Posted by: Big G! on 5/8/2013 7:03:11 AM
After years of reading the source material IRON MAN 3 is a surprise.
Liberties have been taken, the film universe is a different animal
to the comix. Their AIM is a bit off!. Just enjoy the film for what it is.... not the one you & I would have made!
Overall it's a romantic actioner with funny one liners.

Posted by: MORDOC on 5/8/2013 2:40:46 AM
I saw it. I was disappointed. Mandarin was really not what I was expecting, and I kept hoping he would turn around and reveal that it was the real expected Mandarin at any time. Everything else was fine except that one huge thing (Will "Mandarine" show up again at "FULL" power, I hope so).
Also, while at the Calgary Comic Expo, Stan Lee had been there and in his Panel, he talked about how his cameo was cut. After the contestant says her thing, he says "Those are goals I could get behind" before he flips his sign. He was quit disappointed it was cut as he felt it was his funniest cameo he had ever done. Here's hoping it's in the extended version on DVD.

Posted by: Puuka on 5/7/2013 7:17:31 PM