Iron Man 3 (2013) Shane Black
We begin the film with Tony Stark (Downey, Jr) going back to the beginnings of his playboy lifestyle in a flashback where he meets an aspiring botanist, Maya Hansen (Hall) who is developing a means to alter DNA in plants to regenerate their broken parts, with sights to use this method of self-healing on humans. However, it’s still a volatile process.
Flash forward to present day, a terrorist who goes by the name of Mandarin (Kingsley) is responsible for random bombings all over which have global tensions on edge. Stark avers to come after Mandarin, who in retaliation destroys his house, putting Pepper Pott (Paltrow) and the recently reappeared scientist Hansen in danger.
Tony is presumed dead from the destruction of his home, but instead has been directed by JARVIS (Stark’s Artificial Intelligence, for those unfamiliar with the mythology) to Tennessee to investigate what appears to be a Mandarin-related bombing to understand the source of the man’s evil in order to put a stop to his reign of terror. However, upon landing, Tony’s Iron Man suit has malfunctioned leaving him not only marooned but without the suit from which he’s able to communicate to JARVIS, or anyone. This leaves him to his own clever devices to survive and get to the bottom of Mandarin’s plan.
Without giving too much away, Iron Man 3 was a delight to watch. The dialogue in the film is clever and hilarious in many parts. Seeing Don Cheadle with more on-screen butt-kicking time was refreshing in his supporting role of Colonel Rhodes. Kingsley was, as ever, stimulating and well-played as the nefarious terrorist, Mandarin. You get to see more of Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark outside his Iron Man suit which was Shane Black’s theme throughout the film: the suit does not necessarily make the man, or the Iron Man as it were.
Stay through the credits for a fun final scene. 😉