Iron Man 3 is good, but doesn’t live up to expectations

Ivey: OK, I did have two pretty big problems with the story. First, I absolutely hated the twist with the Mandarin. Until we realized that he was an actor, the conflict really felt personal between he and Stark, even though they never actually met. Whereas Killian, the film’s true villain, actually had a personal connection with Stark, after the switch that conflict carried no emotional weight for me.

Chuck: I thought the twist was pretty amazing and I have a feeling that the true comic fans are going to get their panties in a twist. However, I felt that it worked in the context of the movie. I don’t know … Stark only challenged the Mandarin after Happy was injured, so that was why he finally said screw it and he’d take care of it himself since the government refused to let him get involved. He didn’t know Killian was the true bad guy, so he never really had a conflict with him until he learned the truth and until Killian had taken Pepper. I don’t think he ever had a real personal connection to either the Mandarin or Killian until he sought to take them out. He only briefly met Killian once in 1999 and hardly remembered him, so the connection was tenuous at best. Pepper had more of a personal connection than Tony did. But I liked the twist and it serves to silence those who were pissed that an Asian actor didn’t play him.

Ivey: I also wasn’t a big fan of Pepper’s supposed death. Recycling storylines is one thing; doing it from the first act of the same film is a little much. We’d already gone through the “Pepper thinks Tony is dead” bit, so when it came time for Tony to avenge her “death,” it felt stale. The fact that the audience knew Tony was safe in the first act and that Pepper was obviously safe via Extremis in the last act didn’t help. It was supposed to be big emotion and once again fell flat for me.

Chuck: Yeah, I never for a minute thought that Pepper was dead (one can only hope) although it did shock me for a split second until I remembered she was full of the Extremis stuff. (And she never really thought he was dead for more than a minute until she saw him fly away.) I don’t really think it was supposed to be that dramatic of a moment. It was more of a satisfying moment when she came back and saved the day. But, come on, that’s traditional storytelling — save someone’s life in Act I, they return the favor in Act III. But overall, I was very satisfied with the film. I struggled to stay awake through the second one, but there was never a dull moment in this one … until Rebecca Hall showed up in a scene. The question now is, where does this take Phase II? Will Extremis and AIM play a role in Thor: The Dark World or Captain America: The Winter Soldier? And how does all of this figure in to Avengers II? My guess is that AIM does figure into Phase II in a bigger way simply because of the business card included in the recently released Phase I box set. However it goes, I’m very happy with this Phase II kick-off.