My review of Iron Man 3 became a full-on Freditorial about part threes in trilogies and how Iron Man 3 does all the same things the others do, just a little bit better. For the Blu-ray release, here is a slightly more formal version focused on Iron Man 3, but it probably ends up making the same points. I’ll be as vague as possible, but it’s probably worth praising a few specific achievements at this point where most people have seen the film, so spoiler warning just to be totally above board.
The best part of the Iron Man movies were the scenes of Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) building stuff, and the joy of invention. The first movie was entirely this, because he builds his first suit and has to perfect it by the finale. In Iron Man 3 he’s creating a self-assembling suit, which is bound for disaster. The idea that he needs something to do after New York is poignant without hammering home the PTSD. But idle hands make sentient robot suits and that could be a problem.
One nice surprise spoiler that you probably already know by the time of the Blu-ray’s release involves Tony’s relationship with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). By now we’re aware that Tony and Pepper share everything else, but in key scenes of Iron Man 3, they also share the Iron Man suit. What sharing the suits with Pepper indicates about their relationship is phenomenal. Most of us, if we get really close to someone, might share a toothbrush. When Tony Stark cohabitates, it’s badass.
I like that the underlying rivalry between Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) and Tony is basically a warning of “don’t mess with people.” Tony was a dick back in 1999 but even for all his heroics he still likes to mess with people. See, if he’d only joined Killian’s think tank, he could have steered them towards good and not evil. Now we have super demon people.
The action sequences are interesting. On the one hand, the mass destruction is really all CGI, but the sequences have strong narrative beats that are superior to the shaky cam messes we see today, and on par with equivalent set pieces in a Spielberg or James Cameron movie. A sequence where Tony improvises projectile weapons is fabulous, and going underwater is pretty intense. Iron rusts, so that could be trouble.
The story features an interesting bookend with the action, and I wonder how much of that is Shane Black. While Tony is investigating, recuperating and rebuilding, most of the action happens without his suit. He has some inventions and a few spare parts, but it’s just Robert Downey Jr. in action. That’s Black’s desire to get back to some mano a mano action, or at least make the hero get his hands dirty, so he says. I wonder if it’s also some creative budgeting, where you front and back load the massive set pieces but keep things brisk in the middle.
They give us some snippets of the Iron Patriot in the middle but I thought people would complain that Tony’s not Iron Man enough of the movie, like they did about The Dark Knight Rises. I guess we’re okay with this one. A lot of these sequences also involve flaming demon people terrorizing small town diners, which feels very Howard the Duck to me, and I mean that as a compliment. I love when fantasy movies for kids have really scary monsters wreaking havoc. It’s an ‘80s tradition I’m happy to see Iron Man bring back.
The section with Tony Stark and Harley (Ty Simpkins) works because Downey plays it irreverently. I love that kids are admiring a middle-aged hero. Besides all of Tony’s cautionary bad habits, I hope he motivates kids to study and work really hard so they can accomplish things like Tony Stark. If you’re a billionaire and a genius and live in a comic book, you can build flying robot suits.
There are enough Avengers references to honor that this movie takes place in a world where that movie happened, but also let this be Iron Man 3. Most of the references are to New York, but there’s one about Thor. They’re all dismissed by Tony’s anxiety, which is a sly way to deny what the audience really wants to hear about. I mean, come on, Iron Man just got back from The Avengers. Don’t you want to talk about that?
I call B.S. on the whole “Why don’t they call S.H.I.E.L.D.?” complaint. You’re very clever to suggest that if these worlds coexist, then the other characters should always be on hand to help. That’s also saying you don’t want Iron Man solo movies anymore, and you do still want Iron Man solo movies, don’t you? You should. The cool thing about this whole Marvel universe is we get both team and solo movies. If they’re all team movies then it just becomes a singular franchise. Plus, if you want to explain away S.H.I.E.L.D., that’s going to be a very boring expository scene where they discuss why S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t available. The real reason is “Because this is an Iron Man movie.”
Yet Iron Man 3 is willing to totally throw away the integral piece of Tony Stark’s mythology, so maybe a S.H.I.E.L.D. reference wouldn’t be out of the question. I still don’t buy the film’s epilogue. Even if the Extremis somehow gave Tony the ability to heal himself, the whole point of Iron Man is that he’s only alive by his own inventions, inventions which are a compromise to his well being at that. You don’t want to remove that from his backstory.
Disney and Marvel put together a good Blu-ray full of bonus features too. The behind the scenes features focus on specific aspects of the production so they don’t rehash generalities, like I just complained about last week’s World War Z Blu-ray. They dissect the Air Force One rescue, for example, and an on-the-set feature focuses on production, not rehashing the plot. The two-minute preview of Thor: The Dark World shows off some cool shots too.
Deleted scenes include some interesting things but mostly alternate takes that were best left out. The full Bill Maher monologue actually sounds exactly like something Maher would say. The full “Fashion Police” bit is embarrassing. Even Shane Black and Drew Pearce couldn’t make “Fashion Police” sound good, though the cast probably just improvised. One significant subplot is a bully in Harley’s story. The gag reel includes some off color remarks. They left those in, even though they’re bleeped out, for a Disney Blu-ray.
As you can imagine, listening to Black and Pearce talk in a feature-length commentary is engaging and worthwhile. They actually share a lot of the alternate story ideas, some which were filmed and cut and others which didn’t make it past the script stage. This is highly informative as to what makes a major superhero movie work, and what other paths the sequel could have taken.
There’s only one thing missing from Iron Man 3: the alternate Chinese version. No mention of it in the bonus features, and if it was alluded to on the commentary I must have zoned out. If there are rights issues to keep the U.S. and Chinese cuts separate, that’s a shame. The fun of alternate cuts should be that we eventually get to see them both. As far as Iron Man 3 goes though, this is a good Blu-ray.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
