Film review: Iron Man 3
The Iron Man trilogy concludes with fire, and lots of it, but while there is always a chance of the iron phoenix rising again, it seems this is the end of the road for the franchise, although the filmmakers are playing coy. There are many bangs, but in the end it is the whimper that is deafening. The narrative pull is never particularly strong, as it seems we have seen this all before.
Out of the hands of Jon Favreau, who directed the first two installments and whose involvement this time around is only as an actor – one who lies comatose in the hospital for most of the running time – Iron Man 3 was scripted and helmed by Shane Black. It’s Black’s first film in the director’s chair since 2005, when his extraordinary (and extraordinarily self-deprecating) Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang melded film noir with comedy in a way we were not used to.
The first few seconds of this film are titillatingly close to the sensibility of Kiss, Kiss …, as Robert Downey Jr. (who also had the lead in the 2005 film, playing an actor pretending to be a detective as he blundered his way through a murder investigation yet managed to find the killer in the end) constantly interrupts his own voiceover to correct what he said a few moments before.
Read the full review at The Prague Post.
(Still of Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man 3. © 2012 MVLFFLLC. TM &2012 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.)
