Reviews Film / Iron Man 3

Holy crap thank you! This movie was very goddamn polarizing to me. Although I really liked what they did with every character, the whole last act just made me go "no, they're kidding, no!" It's like... what if halfway through the Dark Knight we find out the Joker is actually a whole bunch of pasty, petty white waiter guys who hate Bruce Wayne because he didn't tip them at a fancy restaurant or something. Killen would have been a rather nice, more serious Justin Hammer type, but instead they shilled him. They didn't even bother to try and make him interesting, like, oh say, making him Zeke Stane, which would have added layers to the character. I'm just dying to know what it would have been if the Mandarin, the terrifying, cult leader esque modern terrorist who hates everything Tony is and represents, had actually been real, and what the climax would have been when the two actually faced off, through fists and words. And, also, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO SEE THE MANDARIN HAVE HIS FUCKING RINGS. Jesus Christ. Your villain needs to be at least as interesting as your hero, when he's not, suddenly... who cares?

An excellent analysis of the movie to me; The movie wasn't bad in itself, but what they did with the villain was a HUGE mistake. Not that the twist wasn't smart, it was technically clever. But doing this to the MANDARIN, the ONE villain that could pretend as Iron Man's equal and Arch Enemy, was just dumb. The trailer indeed made it appear like he was going to be exactly what you'd expect: an antithesis to everything Stark defends, a real treath that would finally create a true challenge to Iron Man (because let's face it, he defeated his previous villains relatively easily in the movies). Not only did Killian end up being a petty, uninteresting villain with lame motivations (yeah, sure, I'd totally go all Evil Mastermind too if some dick forgot about a discussion he was supposed to have with me...), but, despite what Word Of God says, he is NOT the Mandarin in my eyes, for the simple reason he has absolutely nothing in common with any incarnation of the character: not the same ethnicity, not the same personnality and motivations, not even the same POWERS! That's just silly. At least, in The Dark Knight Rises, even though they removed Bane's signature Venom, they were careful to keep the core concept of the character- a though, cynical Genius Bruiser who managed to cripple Batman. Killian is nothing like the Mandarin, except for very superficial similiarities.

And yes, the rings, as pointed out by Chaos Systems; I am aware they wanted to keep the movie realistic, and that it was what prevented them from using the Mandarin in the first two movies. Except... 1) The Avengers confirms this Universe had a whole species of Physical Gods and a cube-sized device that could open portails to another dimension allowing aliens to come; I am pretty sure it's too late to play the "we have to keep it realistic" card, especially if they aknowledge the battle of Manhattan in the movie; 2) If they wanted to keep it realistic, then maybe they shouldn't have included EXTREMIS NANOMACHINES THAT TURN PEOPLE INTO VULCANIC WOLVERINES!! That's just dumb.

I thought the twist with the Madarin was nothing short of brilliant. Before the reveal, he looked like he was going to be nothing more than a stereotypical terrorist bad guy with little to no actual characterization.

But then it turns out he's actually just a pawn to a much more subtle villain who is able to pit both the Government and the so-called "terrorists" against each other so he can reap the profits? That is ten times more realistic and more interesting than anything the Mandarin could ever be.

Well, it would be a lot more interseting except we have villains trying to profit off of a war by supporting terrorists to reap the profits in the last two movies. First time it worked and was ten times more realistic, second time was disappointingly derivative, and the third time it showed a lack of effort and imagination.

Less supporting terrorists than actually being the terrorists this time.

Excuse me Zennistrad, while I agree the twist in itself was clever and surprising, the execution was in my opinion poor, and I have to disagree on the subltle part. Kilian was Anything but subtle. As I said above, he was cliché, uninteresting, with poorly-handled motivations and extremely uninteresting powers. Might have been better if they had actually fleshed out the whole manipulating the terrorist aspect, that could have been cool. But it wasn't; in the end, it was more "Killian is an asshole who want Tony's girl and to ruin his life for dumping him a few years ago". I ask to see ANYONE who went evil genius for such a dumb reason in real life.

Did Killian say, though, that he actually WASN'T angry at Tony, but rather GLAD that he drove him to desperation and thus build up his own fortune? He may have been getting revenge, but in a twisted way he seemed to think he was doing good for Tony. That's a subtle trait of sort there.

I don't know, it felt more like papering over the motivational cracks and generic villain speech than a particularly believable character trait.

It could have been interesting, but I think the problem is that all of his actions spoke to him having a whole lot of anger and resentment and not a lot of goodwill motivation. Saying you're not angry whilst you've blown up their house and are actively trying to torture/kill them is more like delusion, or the 'Come, join me!' tropey rant.

Someone else mentioned it somewhere else but I think the twist was really only surprising if you'd be following along with the Mandarin hype beforehand. If you hadn't had paid much attention to all this media before showing all the different shots of the villain, then the very first scene seems to scream that they're going to make him the overall villain and go down the awful stereotypical 'bullied as a kid becomes evil' sort of path. I didn't know who the mandarin was before Iron Man 3 and only watched a handful of trailers and it actually confused me that they were spending so much time on the guy who was just a red herring, and I know other people had similar experiences.

It's like they tried to make the guy Syndrome without actually making him interesting to begin with, and then they didn't even give him a proper motive. Again, with a little work, Killian could have been a perfectly good, crazy supervillain, especially if they just gave up the ghost and had the BIG PLOT TWIST(TM) be that he was the illegitimate son of Obidiah named Ezekiel Stane or something, making him a character that he matched up with fairly well from the comics and giving him plenty of more reason to hate Tony aside from "man, I kind of dislike you and am mostly doing this to get a superhero out of the way." Seeing how the MCU already has, you know, a super solider who survived being frozen for several decades, a thunder god from Norse myths, and a giant, green rage monster with a heart of gold, you'd think they either would have used the perfectly reasonable idea of one villain being related to another, or have actually kept with the idea of a larger than life supervillain... who is really no more unrealistic than many cult and terrorists leaders. They could have had a multi-layered, understandable and thoroughly evil and clever main villain... instead we got another petty white guy. Sure, the twist we got worked for the five minutes it mattered, but overall it ruined a great villain and lessened the main conflict of the movie, turning it from a battle of wits and ideals into a slugfest where one side didn't even give a damn.

I enjoyed the movie from the perspective that the movie was about Tony, and everything, even the villains, were brought in just to act as a foil to him. I get the feeling that the writers didn't care as much about making the villains interesting as they did making them symbolic. Think about the Mandarin as portrayed in the movie and how he relates to Tony. Both of them put on this big show of being important and powerful, whereas in reality, they're sad, pathetic, spoiled rich manchildren. And then they did this again with Killian, only this time showing what could become of the obssessive Tony we saw in the first half: the kind of guy who tries so hard to gain and maintain the life of a hero and celebrity that he ends up hurting people and losing sight of what's important to him. They didn't drop the Tony's conflicts in the second half. Tony was almost literally battling his inner demons.

Now, of course, that doesn't mean the film's any better for it since whether the characters and the plot stand on their own without all this allegorical crap is indeed important. But I think it's something to consider.

Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it, but considering they're adapting source material and trying to also fit in a cohesive, coherent story, I think it's a tiny bit more important to care about the characters themselves than how they relate back to a grand theme. Like, work on one and then another and let it happen naturally.

When you don't, you end up ruining a perfectly good character to shill another who wasn't as interesting as the last, even if he 'meant' something. Iron Man 3 is still a very well done movie, but the fact it grazed greatness and dropped it in order to tell a joke and put forth an idea they could have done better makes it all the more bittersweet, and that's why it vexes me as much as it does.

In other words, it's another good movie that has its flaws, it just sucks that those flaws easily could have been avoided.

I'm just kind of confused as to how the film is "full of lies".

^The lie being that Ben Kingsley was built up to be the Mandarin and his character turns out to be just a decoy.

Ben Kingsley's character being "brilliant" is the biggest lie in this review. He wasn't threatening at all, he made me want to laugh. Crushing fortune cookies? Really?

So basically any movie with a plot twist is "full of lies"? That's kind of a weird way to put it.

What do you people want? Mandarin is a Yellow Peril stereotype with magic rings. There's just no way to make that work when its being introduced to a 2013 audience in a live action movie. It gets grandfathered in for the comics but not everything that works in the comics works on the big screen. This brilliant twist (and the excellent job they did of hiding it up to the release, [seriously? "lack of effort" fenris? What have you done today?]) is the best thing they could possibly do with the Mandarin in a 2013 live action movie. This is especially true with the weird state of things between china and the U.S.

Also, even if you did keep him in his classic form, he just doesn't fit in Tony's world. He might fit in the larger marvel cinematic universe (say, in an Avengers movie or maybe some kind of Thor / Iron Man team up but not here.)

You seem to sort of miss the point that Tony IS LIVING IN THE SAME WORLD THAN THE AVENGERS! They establish that now, it was even the cause of Tony's crisis. And even if you refuse that logic, the magic nanorobot that give fire-healing powers don't fit either in a realistic context. So no.

As for the Mandarin, he worked perfectly fine BEFORE the twist. They could have kept Ben Kingsley being the real one instead of putting the twist and that would have worked. And the magic rings could have been remains from Chitauri tech or alien tech of the same kind. In that case, the Madarin would have represented EXACTLY what caused Tony's crisis, and the movie would have been about him overcoming this fear to accept he is in a bigger world. THAT would have been AWESOME. But instead we get another generic villain, and he retires for some reason even though we all know he will be back for Avengers 2. They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot indeed.

No, it wouldn't, because Kingsley was playing him as a terrible racial stereotype, or at least dressing as such. You can bet your ass if that twist hadn't happened there'd be fucking outrage—at least from the people sane enough to value racial sensitivity over whether something's a faithful adaptation.

Social Justice Warriors are the sane ones now?

Personally I find "putting Ben Kingsley in stereotypical Chinese garb and hairstyling is a horribly insensitive thing to do" a saner viewpoint than "Ben Kingsley unironically in stereotypical Chinese garb and hairstyling would've been awesome", yes.

I Honestly didn't hear anyone complaining about the Mandarin being a racial stereotypes when the first trailers came up, so yeah, wasn't much of a big deal. Especially if they had given him big technology. Also, seriously, wouldn't the idea that a rich white man is behind the terrorist be an Unfortunate Implication in itself, like suggest strangers are too dumb to be the masterminds?

Point is, yeah, the twist was good, but the execution was lame. Killian makes a poor, generic replacement for the Mandarin.

No, I'm sorry, I think the idea that a rich white guy would pull a stunt like this because he knows Americans are scared of foreigners and easily drawn in by cheap theatrics is far less problematic than if the Mandarin had been genuine.

Unless, of course, you're suggesting they cast a Chinese guy as the villain and had him reveal it was all an act to cover up his real scheme would've worked better—and yeah, it might've, but the movie wouldn't have sold in China.

I'm still not sure how this movie is "full of lies".

But they were playing the Mandarin as a middle eastern terrorist style figure which is what people were expecting here and that would've have worked (and it's what we were talking about right?). I don't think people were expecting Chinese stereotypes or complaining that that didn't happen.

Whether the middle eastern stereotype is racist would be up for debate, but it wouldn't be more or less so than in the first film

Theokal. I guess you and I don't hang out on the same parts of the internet because I heard lots of lots of complaints and people scratching their heads wondering how on earth Mandarin would work in the context of this series.

Really ? People complained about how he would work in a serie where Human Aliens who travel through worlds with a raibow-based machine, a guy dress like a viking want to rule the world, one of the bad guy was a nazi with a heavy case of Stupid Jetpack Hitler and a cube can be used to open portails to bring an Alien Invasion? That seems a bit hypocritical to me.

I don't think so. Can you see how 'it's not racist, we have aliens' is a bad argument? Or 'this colonial-era-chinese stereotype is fine because we have sci-fi Nazis' doesn't really work?

I really can't see why people would be hypocritical to not compare a long established race specific caricature to a cube that opens portals.

Also norse mythology is an actual thing that people used to believe in and is viewed positively today. The chinese mystic isn't a chinese mythological tradition, it's what we decided to believe in rather than admit chinese people have technological sophistication and are pretty much like every other human being

They could have just toned down the character's stereotypical attributes while keeping true to the comics.

Instead of, you know, revealing him as fake.

I'm not against that, I was arguing for him as he was depicted before the reveal (ish) the comment above that one. But I wasn't a fan of Theokal3's arguments for why straight up would have been okay.

I think the Mandarin would have been one of the harder ones to change without it being borderline problematic because the whole 'chinese mystic' is both a really old and horrible trope nowadays and pretty much in the name of the character, but bright people could have done it.

But the rings would have been fine and you could have made him more of an executive/triad style figure, change his race or even make him American-Chinese

I still don't get why keeping the Mandarin as he was would have been racist. Seriously, did people actually watch the previous movies? NOBODY complained about Raza and the Ten Rings being racist, at least not as much as I hear criticisms were made about the Mandarin.

I'm not sure if I'm included with that. I'm pretty much okay with them keeping him as he was prereveal (although I do think that would have been a bit bad, but like you say, only as bad as Iron Man 1, which most people were okay with).

When I'm reading back through this discussion, I'm not always certain if people are talking about having the Mandarin like he was in the comics, or having the completely different Mandarin that they had pre-reveal. I thought you were talking more about using comic book Mandarin so my comments were a bit misplaced sorry

I was talking about comic book Mandarin, but the thing is, his character changed a lot over the course of the comic. Killian actually was based on his more recent portrayal, but I feel he is so different that it doesn't really works. The part from the comic I think should have been kept would have been the whole "getting his powers from alien technology he retrieved", and maybe some aspects of his personnality. Of course I realize we couldn't have made him a full Yellow Peril villain.

Original reviewer here. Wow this review is popular. But anyway, on the issue of The Mandarin himself, I don't think Ben Kingsley was an stereotype before The Reveal. The Mandarin started off as a Yellow Peril in the comics (Like Luke Cage started off as a collection of Black stereotypes), but his character evolved with time, and he is more of a case of "Genius villain who is asian" rather than "Those wascally chinese".

Hell, before The Reveal The Mandarin had nothing of a stereotype if you asked me. His accent was pretty clearly neutral (not even british), he never used eastern traits as a symbol (as all of his speeches are about Western hipocrisy, not about the superiority of the East), and he was dressed ambivalently (the only vaguely oriental thing in his look is his robes, which are distoned by the fact he wears clearly western shades and military garb to go with it). If they had done him as an awfully offensive Yellow Peril before The Reveal, I'd be fine.

But the problem is they actually updated the character masterfully. He was just a very clever and fascinating villain who happened to be of asian ethnicity (which is not even clear in the movie proper, see his lack of accent) who was wasted for no reason.

no but he have this aawfull "western are monsters that deserved to be destroy" or "death to america" that we already saw in to many movies, having the mandarin is one of those thing that you should take down a lot ot make them work

And we traded that for what, Aldritch Killian, yet another Corrupt Corporate Executive engineering a war to make himself obscenely rich (the third character of that type of this trilogy alone)? At least the Mandarin had an interesting rhetoric, gravitas and acting behind him, even his motives could have been explored further into something more unique if the movie had been about him. They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character reigns supreme here.