Superhero Media: Iron Man 3

I've mentioned previously, but once again, I honestly find Iron Man 2 a better film than Iron Man 3. This is for a number of reasons, but a big part is the shift in tone that the change in director brings, as well as a general fatigue I have with Tony Stark at this point. RDJ's Tony Stark is one of the major cornerstones of the MCU and I love the character, but I just couldn't help but find him exhausting during Iron Man 3, without the presence of other Avengers to balance out the ego and sass. Tony is a lot, is what I'm saying. He's a bit much at times, and as much of the second act involves Tony talking to himself, I just got a bit tired of it all this time around. In the first act, where Tony is dealing poorly with his trauma and not sleeping, he's a really engaging character, who is utterly unable to cope with the unfathomable thing that happened to him and isn't equipped to ask for help. Any vulnerability that Tony experiences is quickly sidelined, however, as the world is under attack by the sinister Mandarin! 

Checkmating Ben Kingsley's historic casting in non-white roles by having him play a more washed-up version of himself was a moment of genius and I still love it to this day. The scene where Tony figures out what's going on is a lot of fun and contrasts nicely with Kingsley's "Mandarin" sequences, also displaying the range that Kingsley can reach. More than once, I've heard people refer to Guy Pearce's Killian as "The Mandarin", purportedly because of the line where he says as much; have we really forgotten how hyperbole works? Also, the idea that Killian is behind the entire trilogy's worth of Tony's suffering is baffling and a disappointing resolution to the series. Guy Pearce is freaking amazing, as usual, I really wanted him to be cast as Doctor Strange and am still miffed that he's done his MCU dash after a single film that I didn't really care for all that much. Killian being the actual villain, rather than Maya Hansen as in the comic "In Extremis" storyline, feels like a misstep, especially as she really has nothing else to do in the film other than gush over how smart Tony is. 

It's great having Rhodey back, though it's odd he doesn't get to do more in the finale, with all of the empty Iron Man suits flying around and dying in a pointless and not well choreographed battle. I rarely say that any of the MCU movies are "bad", because they're not, the acting, scripts and film work is at least reasonable in all of them, but I honestly don't care much for Iron Man 3. I really do prefer both Iron Man 2 and Thor - The Dark World when it gets down to it. There's still plenty to enjoy and I'm, again, not saying that it is, by any measure, a bad film, just not one I like to watch all that often. With the distance of time and the resolution[s] of Avengers Endgame, I can safely say that I honestly prefer Tony Stark when he's part of an ensemble, rather than the focus of the entire film, and whilst I'll miss having more Captain America outings, it just won't be the same for Iron Man. That said, I have been thinking about some "Armour Wars" inspired antics of late, perhaps I can scoop up some cheap Heroclix suits to play that out.