Man of Iron Demonstrates His Durability

'Iron Man 3' was superb entertainment, nearly as perfect in its way as the first Iron Man movie. Thrills, surprises, breathtaking rescues and a lot of wit, but the humor is not at the expense of the character. 

Robert Downey Jr. plays a superhero laid low by hubris who must battle an overwhelming national menace while suffering PTSD. The idea of a superhero with PTSD is one so obviously excellent that you wonder why no one thought of it before. All those death traps, alien invasions and transdimensional wormholes would take their toll, after all.

"Nothing's been the same since New York," Stark says, referring to alien invasion thwarted by the Avengers. "You experience things, and then they're over. I can't sleep, and when I do I have nightmares. Honestly, there's a hundred people who want to kill me. I hope I can protect the one thing I can't live without..."

As always, Downey makes the manifestly unreal quirkily real. Ben Kingsley gets a chance to turn in a fun virtuoso performance. The film also takes a number of swift, extremely pointed shots at U.S. foreign policy. 
As in seemingly all films these days, physical reality is defied in ways that shred even dramatic license and undercut suspense. And, for a period of the action, Tony Stark seems to lose focus on the fact that the love of his life is being tortured to death somewhere. One wouldn't. Sometimes action can overwhelm motivation.

We were able to have our cake and eat it with the Mandarin, a traditional Marvel Fu Manchu villain. Yellow Peril-ish villains now being regarded as racists, the film is able to provide both the comic book's version of the arch-villain and then parody that very idea, exposing it as a think tank creation designed to play on American stereotypes. "Ladies, children, sheep," the Mandarin intones on one of those national broadcast interruptions that are Standard Operating Procedure for super villains. "Some people call me a terrorist. I consider myself a teacher. Lesson number one: Heroes, there is no such thing."
Stark's interactions with the kid (Ty Simpkins) were my favorites, wry and warm while playing AGAINST sentimentality. Tony Stark essentially related to the kid as an equal, which sort of makes sense because superheroes are, after all, the fantasy projections of 12-year-old boys, however much Hollywood tricks them up with adult angst. Harley Keener: "Well, my mom already left at the diner, and dad went to someone to get scratchers... I guess he won, 'cause that was six years ago."

Tony Stark: "Hmm... which happens, dads leave, no need to be a pussy about it, here's what I need..."

I do have a problem with the film's contrived central thematic conflict. Tony Stark could actually never have been confused about whether the armor or the man is "the real me." He has always known that he created the armor, that it is purely an expression or his intelligence and will. So that "conflict" is silly and unconvincing, and the Fourth of July explosion of the armor at the climax is pointless.

Digital art by Cosmosnail