Iron Man rocks

Iron Man 3
DIRECTED BY: Shane Black
STARRING: Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley
CERT: 12A

There is a scene in the later stages of Iron Man 3, in which Tony Stark (Downey Jr) has a confrontation with a certain minor but important character. It is an excellent scene for a number of reasons. It’s brilliantly written, for example and superbly acted. It also reveals a lovely little surprise and better still, it’s an entirely plausible turn in the plot – a strange and rare thing in blockbuster land.

 

The most excellent thing about this scene is that, in the course of the confrontation, it emerges that this certain individual is a Liverpool supporter. A small detail, perhaps, but instantly this small detail tells us two things.

Firstly, that this is a man who has experienced both great joy and great pain in his life – but in recent times, mostly great pain. In this one small detail, he becomes a character of genuine depth and substance. A man we can believe in. Indeed, a man whose actions we can believe in, given that his soul has enjoyed no lasting peace and contentment in, oh, let’s say 23 years. Not that anyone is counting.

The second thing it tells us, is that the creator of Iron Man 3, writer/director Shane Black, is aware that in the best and worst of times, the best and worst of men find solace in the English Premier League. In this knowledge, we are reminded that we are in safe hands – the hands of a man who lives in the real world. Again, a rare thing in blockbuster land.

You will not find much football in the films of, oh, let’s say Christopher Nolan. Nolan isn’t big on laughs, either. Yet these are the things that matter, the things that keep us going in a world gone mad.

In Iron Man 3, the world is gone a little bit madder. A terrorist known as The Mandarin (Kingsley) is claiming responsibility for a series of explosions in the United States and is threatening to come for the President himself. Iron Man’s sidekick, War Machine (Cheadle), has been deployed to hunt the terrorist down, getting himself a new coat of paint and a brand new name: The Iron Patriot. You knew right well it would happen.
Iron Man, meanwhile, is having a bit of a crisis. Stark is suffering panic attacks after that big alien invasion last year nearly killed him and his new sleepless routine is making things tense at home with Pepper (Paltrow).

Adding to his woes, a pair of ghosts from the turn of the century have returned to haunt him – idealistic scientist Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), an abandoned one-night stand and Aldrich Killian (Pearce), a biogenetics genius whose business advances Stark ignored. Neither of them has forgotten the past.

There’s a coherence to Iron Man 3 that was missing from its predecessors, particularly the weak second instalment. Here, the plot is obviously mad but it works and all of its various strands fit together to make a whole, rather than a series of flashy action scenes, with a hundred Robert Downey quips thrown into the mix.

Downey himself has toned it down a bit, actually getting to be a little real this time around – most notably in a couple of very good scenes with a talkative young inventor (Ty Simpkins) who feels they have a connection. Whenever Stark does have those moments of smug invincibility that Downey does in his sleep, he’s taken down a peg or two in a hurry, out of the comfort zone. It’s a pleasure and a relief.

Another letdown in the previous films was the quality of the villains but Stark’s enemies here are worthy foes – not simply because one is an international terrorist and the other is a fire-breathing lunatic, but because both Kingsley and Pearce make them more than cartoon, blockbuster baddies. They’re mad, dangerous… and funny.

Human, in other words, as we were saying at the start. There’s a bit of heart and soul here, strange and rare in this territory. You know you’re watching something a little different when the superhero spends most of his time outside the suit.

There’s plenty of action, to be sure and it closes with a lengthy battle between an army of robots and an army of, well, hot bodies. It ends with a bit of surprise, too and though the obligatory after-credits scene doesn’t make big revelations, it’s worth waiting for.