Iron Man 3 [Iron Man Three] **** (2013, Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall) – Classic Movie Review 3599

Robert Downey Jr continues his charismatic performance as industrialist inventor Tony Stark aka Iron Man in director Shane Black’s exciting, confidently handled sequel to 2008’s Iron Man and 2010’s Iron Man 2, the seventh film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It makes an impressive culmination of  trilogy.

The film also stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, Jon Favreau, William Sadler, Dale Dickey, Ty Simpkins, Miguel Ferrer and Ben Kingsley. It became the 16th film to gross over $1 billion and in 2016 is the tenth highest grossing film of all time.

Black directs a screenplay he co-writes with Drew Pearce, which uses concepts from the Extremis story arc by Warren Ellis, as Tony Stark tries to recover from his post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the events of Avengers Assemble [The Avengers] (2012), while investigating a terrorist organization led by the mysterious Mandarin.

Though staying on as as an executive producer and actor, Favreau decided not to return as director, and in February 2011 Black was hired to write and direct the film, opting to make the script more character based and more focused on thriller elements. This results in a witty and entertaining movie with impressive action sequences.

Filming took place from May 23 to December 17, 2012, primarily at EUE/Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina, and at various locations around North Carolina, as well as in Florida, China and Los Angeles. The visual effects were handled by 17 companies, including Scanline VFX, Digital Domain and Weta Digital. The film was converted to 3D in post-production.

Iron Man 3 premiered on April 14 2013 and was released on April 25 2013 to good reviews and great box office, grossing more than $1.2 billion worldwide, the second highest-grossing film of 2013.

Downey previously starred in Black’s film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), where Black make his impressive debut as director. Downey said: ‘Bringing in Shane Black to write and direct Iron Man 3 to me is basically the only transition from Favreau to a ‘next thing’ that Favreau and the audience and Marvel and I could ever actually sign off on.’

Black became famous in the 80s and 90s for writing the hit buddy action movies Lethal Weapon (1987), The Last Boy Scout (1991), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996). Black said he wanted to make his film as being not about ‘two men in iron suits fighting each other’ but more like a Tom Clancy thriller, with Iron Man fighting real-world villains. ‘The way to go about doing a part 3 is to find a way that the first two weren’t done yet. You have to find a way to make sure that the story that’s emerging is still on-going and, by the time you’ve finished 3, will be something resembling the culmination of a trilogy.’

In 2016, Downey’s Iron Man dominates Chris Evans’s Captain America in Captain America: Civil War. Downey’s Iron Man returns in Sony’s July 2017 Spider-Man reboot, Spider-Man: Homecoming, to star Tom Holland and be directed by Jon Watts.

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© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3599 derekwinnert.com