Directed by Shane Black

Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley

Grade: A-

I don’t know if Shane Black loves Christmas or hates it, but I’d love to know the psychology behind his obsession. You see, I love Lethal Weapon and firmly believe that it, along with myself, is one of the few truly great things to come out of the 1980’s. The movie didn’t invent the buddy cop genre, but it set a standard, one that hasn’t been reached again since. Black brings his directing talents (only his second directorial endeavor, he only wrote Lethal Weapon) to Iron Man 3 and adds his familiar tropes to the tested superhero formula. Everything is there, the buddy cop stuff, Christmas imagery, pitch-perfect dialogue, and a lead character that is barely keeping his shit together. The third, and presumably final Robert Downey Jr. led, film makes a startling discovery: that human beings are infinitely more interesting than machines. It’s hard to say a movie where there are insane amounts of explosions and literally (I think) hundreds of different Iron Man suits, is toned down or subtle, but it actually feels that way most of the time.

The plot picks up in a fairly logical place from where The Avengers ends. Tony Stark doesn’t quite know how to deal with what happened in New York. He’s seen too much, done too much, and can’t explain any of it. He can’t sleep most of the time and when he does he has nightmares. His relationships are crumbling around him and he’s becoming increasingly isolated. A superhero movie dealing, in its own way, with PTSD is a rather remarkable thing and not the stuff of your typical summer blockbuster. In addition to all this existential angst Tony is dealing with, there’s also a well-funded, lunatic terrorist named The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) who wants to kill him and a whole bunch of other people, and to make it sting just a little bit more, Pre-Iron man drunken asshole Tony Stark may have inspired this new villain to a lifetime of evil.

In the third film of a trilogy the hero must lose everything and be nearly ruined in defeat, only to rise from the ashes and continue the fight because he or she figures why they did this heroing stuff in the first place. In this respect, Iron Man 3 doesn’t disappoint. Tony Stark does not have an easy time in this movie, in fact it follows a fairly similar arc to The Dark Knight Rises in some ways. The difference is that Stark is a lot more fun to be around than Bruce Wayne so when he goes most of the movie as himself rather than his costumed identity, we don’t really mind. Downey and Don Cheadle, who reprises his role as James Rhodes, have a lot of fun together, trade banter, and even raid a rich guys compound (more buddy cop stuff) in order to save the day. If the third act is kind of a let down, well that always seems to be the case with the Iron Man movies. Lots of explosions and infinite metal suits punching things is just not quite as much fun as Tony Stark trying to solve a mystery while fighting off panic attacks anytime someone mentions New York. Yes, the movie eventually devolves into our hero having to save his girl, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and the President of the United States, but it provides nice enough twists to these familiar tropes that it feels somewhat fresh, if not completely unique.

As usual, Downey is a perfect Tony Stark and the supporting cast are just as great. Kingsley, Cheadle, and Paltrow all know they’re in a comic book movie and are having a great time with it. Guy Pearce, playing a slimy character, because of course he is, is a much more believable threat to Stark than Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer from the second film.

Iron Man 3 is an interesting follow up to the sheer spectacle of The Avengers, if only because it doesn’t try to top it. It tells a character driven story and has a complete absence of, except for some namedropping, other superheroes. This movie succeeds because it doesn’t try to do too much, and despite the somewhat too easy resolution, it’s a worthy addition to Marvel’s new film canon and a good way to introduce the next wave of Avengers related movies.