With a movie as iconic as Iron Man 3, it seems that this review is best meant for the people who wouldn’t see it opening weekend because I’m not sure any words I use would influence any decision in the first three days. I’m not even sure the casting would influence anyone in those first three days. In a seemingly increasing trend in big films, only the biggest names show up.

Robert Downey Jr. reprises his role as Tony Stark (aka Iron Man). Gwyneth Paltrow is the plucky Pepper Potts, Stark’s “girlfriend Friday”. Don Cheadle keeps the role of Colonel James Rhodes, who mans War Machine, an Iron Man clone of sorts. But let’s add two more huge names. Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian, jilted scientist who doesn’t take kindly to Tony Stark, and Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin, super villain of the world. Oh, and William Sadler, who people might remember as that guy from Shawshank Redemption. But I always think of him as that guy from Die Hard 2 or even better as the hero of Demon Knight. All of which are better films than Iron Man 3. But don’t take this the wrong way; I quite liked the latest outing for our metal hero.

Man or machine.

Let’s start with the story. The film begins with a flashback of Tony Stark’s ego mistreating the wrong scientists who later grow up to be the right scientists with the right abilities, albeit they are much more angry now. This is not a secret. It’s spelled out that this is going to happen in the first few moments. The x-factor of Iron Man 3 is international terrorist The Mandarin, who Tony Stark also annoys to the extent that The Mandarin attacks Tony’s life, leaving him broken and alone in Tennessee, where he has to seek help to become himself again. It goes beyond the machinery, though. Stark is suffering panic attacks after his experience fighting aliens in The Avengers film. So in his rebuilding of the Iron Man, he has to become right with himself before he can fight The Mandarin, stop whatever plan the jilted scientists might have, and convince Pepper Potts he really does care.

I’ll give him one more chance.

The problem is, I didn’t care. I was acutely aware of how risky it was to spend a big chunk of the film without the Iron Man robot on screen. To take time to delve into the human characters is a big deal. It’s never boring but it doesn’t reach the emotional highs it tries for. In fact, it doesn’t really seem to know how serious to take its own emotions, opting for humor rather than let the darkness of it all sink in. The whole movie blisters along at such a pace and with such humor, you will forget you’re wearing those annoying 3-D glasses. It looks fantastic. Special effects are getting so much better that you might believe someone does have a metal suit which assemble itself onto their body just by stretching out one’s arms. But really, that’s what this movie is. An incredible explosion of humor and effects. The attempts at meaningful emotional context fall short. I once read an interview where Robert Downey Jr. complained about how artsy fartsy The Dark Knight was. He was mad about this weird concept of Batman having to be a villain for Gotham to chase, in order to heal, and how that made no sense. He preferred how the original Iron Man was far more straightforward. Well, I loved The Dark Knight but I also preferred the first Iron Man to this current film because it really gave a better sense of motivation. I could understand why Pepper Potts put up with Stark in the first film. But no longer. I don’t get it. She is supposed to be the strong counterpoint to his destructive personality, but after three movies, I am now not really convinced Stark thinks much about her except when he almost kills her. Their relationship is more like an addict promising never to do it again. She should totally dump him.

The elongated ending fight scene is a truly spectacular set of whiz bang effects where Tony jumps from one suit to the next, mid-air. As I watched a scene of a villain standing on top of a freight container,

Virtua Cop is Iron Man

I had a flashback of my own, to my days of playing Virtua Cop. I loved that game. And it aptly describes what Iron Man 3 is. It’s a video game. It moves like one. It’s as deep as some of the better ones. And it ties up super nicely like all good games do that involve shooting an army of 400 to stop the bad guy. It’s also The A-Team, what with its elongated sequence of rebuilding equipment from podunk technology. It’s also Charlie’s Angels, what with its hyperactive sense of beauty saving the world and its totally crazy ending credit sequence which made no sense but was a lot of fun. My friend GI Joe described it as Simon and Simon: a comedy, buddy action show. Well, I enjoyed The A-Team, Virtua Cop, Simon and Simon, and Charlie’s Angels in their day. So I enjoyed Iron Man 3.

It’s just that the movie makes a real attempt of getting that emotional connection going and falls short. And really, that’s the only thing which would separate it out from the pack. That’s why I focused on it. Because if reduced to just special effects and eye candy, it ranks among the best, but what does that really mean? Is this eye candy more worthy than the eye candy of the latest GI Joe movie or any of the Transformers movies? It’s actually better than those because it does have a core of humanity. And the orange, glowing villains are truly an intimidating invention.

I think audiences could handle a bit more of the heart and a bit less of the boom. This latest outing is my second favorite in the trilogy (number 2 is pretty bleh). I like it and was very entertained but it packs too much in and avoids total greatness by substituting explosions for emotions. Like its titular hero, the movie is bit too machine like. As far as explosions go, though… holy cow!