Shane Black's IRON MAN 3

Boring title for a movie review, huh? Yeah, I know. I should have come up with something a bit more clever, eye catching, something that pops; but instead I went the generic route. Whatever. I can't be expected to always come up with the nut grab headline, especially when I haven't written a review in over two years. And yes, in case you were wondering, I am writing this with the internal voice of a Robert Downey Jr. narration. Corny? Sure. It seems to work well enough for him, though. That rapid fire stream of consciousness style of spouting dialogue and/or monologue may actually be the very thing that got this whole Marvel juggernaut off the ground in the first place. RDJ made it happen. They owe it all to him. But we can talk about later. For now, let's get back to the whole boring title thing. 

As a lead-in to a review Iron Man 3, the newest installment in the always outrageously anticipated Marvel Studios/Disney/Avengers mega-franchise, my simple title is actually a pretty succinct way of describing this film. This is, if you are at all familiar with the films of Shane Black, but for those of you who don't know, here's the rundown. 

Shane Black is an actor/screenwriter/director who began his career in the late mid-eighties playing bit parts in low-grade action flicks and one relatively larger role as the bespectacled misogynistic joker in the Schwarzenegger classic Predator. In that same year, Black saw his first produced screenplay hit the big screen. It was a little buddy cop movie called Lethal Weapon, which went on to spawn a franchise and put Shane Black in the screenwriter stratosphere. As his career progressed, he garnered some critical acclaim as well as increasing lucrative paydays for his work which included Lethal Weapon 2, The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight. His notoriety, along with the fact that his films all contained very similar tropes and character dynamics, made for a very specific brand of film: the Shane Black movie. He was a writer with a distinct voice and an eye for adrenalized entertainment. The action in some of his stories was often pretty bat-shit, but he always seemed to maintain verisimilitude (a daunting task when one of your movies involves a man thwarting an assassination attempt by using a football as a projectile). But as Black gained a fan following and a few million dollars a script the end results of the films produced from his work following LW were almost entirely critical and box-office disasters. Long story short, he basically disappeared from the industry until 2005 when he was inexplicably allowed to debut as the director of an original script titled Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; a stellar action/comedy starring Corbin Bernsen, Larry Miller, and a recovering alcoholic former teen star named Robert Downey Jr. 

But as Black's luck would have it the release of KKBB was completely bungled by Warner Bros. and the film barely saw the inside of a theater. His directorial debut and hopeful return to the world of moviemaking seemed to have been another failure. Fortunately, there were enough savvy cinephiles out there to word-of-mouth this picture into the cult section of the video stores that were still open at the time. KKBB now has a loyal following, thanks in no small part to the bravado performance of RDJ as Harry Lockhart. His turn as the burglar turned amateur detective garnered him some of the mcuh needed comeback heat that both he and Black needed. For Downey, it was enough to help land him the lead in the first film of what would prove to be Hollywood's most lucrative and ambitious blockbuster endeavor: The Avengers franchise. 

Jump to 2013. Iron Man and its decidedly inferior sequel are massive hits and Marvel Studios, which has since been swallowed by Disney, has added three relatively successful films in an audacious attempt to assemble earth's most bankable heroes into the highest grossing movie of all time not made by James Cameron: Joss Whedon's The Avengers. Whedon, know mainly as a guru of cult classic genre television, was handed this elaborate project after only one feature film, Serenity, which was a box office bomb that has a strong cult following. But his talents as a screenwriter enabled him to create a cohesive, exciting, and impressively character driven action spectacle that surprised even his own faithful fans. An interesting parallel to the subject of this review.

On it's surface (meaning, through its publicity campaign) Iron Man 3 appears to be just another sticky tentacle reaching into the pockets of the brand loyal public who will unavoidably flock to the cinema for whatever superhero flick Hollywood decides to throw out there. The assumption, based on trailers and other such advertisement, is that this installment will raise the stakes by escalating the action, adding a villain or two, and possibly tossing in a complication that will have to be dealt with in the upcoming Avengers 2. Going in with these expectations, I came out of the theater surprised and confused when I realized that almost none of those characteristics had made it into the film.

So as the days went by I read some reviews, listened to an interview with Shane Black, revisted his entire oeuvre, and then rewatched IM3, I came to the happy conclusion that the reason I came out of that first screen so confused was because Iron Man was not The Avengers franchise film I was sure it would be. It was barely even an Iron Man film. It was a full tilt Shane Black film hiding in the comfortable clothes of a massive comic book film. That's not to say that there aren't any of the elements that have come to define these Iron Man/Marvel movies. There's still plenty of clanging metal, funny robot arms and just enough explosions to bleed through the walls and make the three people in the next theater watching Pain & Gain wish they were seeing a real Michael Bay movie. The thing about this Iron Man is that it never feels all that interested in the machinations of its own genre. (I'm not either, so don't expect me to critique the action or plotting of the film.) As a very obvious example of the filmmaker's lack of interest in the Iron Man image notice to what lengths they go to keep Tony Stark out of the Iron Man. He almost never wears it, and when he does, it almost immediately is removed or only minimal parts of it remain in tact. They even go so far as to introduce an army of remote controlled drone suits (political commentary?) that allow Tony to deal with his personal demons and relationship issues while the armor flies around, blowing shit up without him. It's this indifference to the standard pleasures of the increasingly banal comic book genre that is what makes this Iron Man so fresh, fun, and even socially relevant. But for movie geeks like me, the real compelling part of Iron Man 3 is its self-reflexivity. The filmmakers involved in this production are very aware of the product they have in their hands and then callously, through a signature Shane Black action trope, destroy all the familiarity of the previous IM films and replace them with the specific story elements, stylistic dialogue, and action sequences that made the Shane Black films of his heyday almost a genre unto themselves. I'll point out a few examples of Mr. Black's signature moves that made their way into IM3:

1) IM3 takes place during Christmas. (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang).

2) Tony Stark is ambushed by a coastal helicopter attack. (Lethal Weapon 1 & 2)

3) Stark and Rhodes take on the bad guys alone while engaging in witty, buddy cop banter. (Lethal Weapon 1 &2, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang.)

4) Tony Stark is captured, tied to something, engages in instigative banter with his captors, and eventually escapes after cooly informing one of the baddies that he's going to kill him (Lethal Weapon 1 & 2, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang)

So, why would a studio greenlight a movie that has as many characteristics of famously unsuccessful movies as it does the familiar and market tested elements of the films that have created the one of th greatest money machines in the history of Hollywood? I propose that there are two answers to this: 

1) Robert Downey Jr. 

2) Why not?

If there has ever been a guaranteed box-office success it is Iron Man 3. Coming off the huge turnout for the previous installments of the series as well as the overwhelmingly positive reception bestowed upon the kind of still an Iron Man movie, The Avengers; the bankability of IM3 was about as sure a bet as they get. So lets just say that a few smart guys (one of whom has a great deal of sway within the Marvel Studio world) understand the certainty of yet another financial windfall and decide that with this fail-safe project they might want to have fun with it. They want to toy with audience expectations, slip in some satire, pack the movie with geeky cinema references (like Jon Favreu being dressed as Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction during the 1999 flashback). And why not? What could wrong? The only thing Disney has to worry about regarding this franchise is whether or not they can keep the man who defined their core character happy enough to stay in the iron suit. So if RDJ wants to  bring in his buddy Shane and think of ways to simultaneously delve deeper into Tony Stark's character, test the tolerance of the comic book audience, and wink at all the video store kids that used to eat up 80s action for breakfast; you let him. After all, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang was a movie that worked on every level other than at the ticket booth. Why not try it again, only this time on the shoulders of a tried and true franchise? The worst thing that could happen is that it only makes $700 million instead of a billion. 

But even now, as I'm writing this review, Iron Man 3-the oddball bastard cousin of the Marvel/Disney family-is well on its way to being the most lucrative installment of the entire franchise. A very interesting development when you consider that the two most successful movies of this entire endeavor could turn out to both be helmed by skilled and unique filmmakers who before entering the Marvel stable had only made one failed film each. The reason this is so is that these are two men who actually understand the art of cinematic storytelling and the studio decided to trust them and since it paid off, maybe we'll be seeing more of it in the years to come. 

In light of Steven Soderbergh's recent announcement that the topsy-turvy fiscal formula that controls what is made or not made in Hollywood is quickly killing cinema as we know ithttp://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2013/05/steven-soderbergh-speech-on-hollywood.html, perhaps the massive financial success of a couple of gifted storytellers like Joss Whedon and Shane Black will introduce the possibility that an intelligent approach to the craft of big budget filmmaking can also be a part of that formula. If that possibility becomes fact, we might see some of the more interesting films of the future born of a $200 million dollar budget and allowed to introduce subversive satirical ideas like in IM3 which introduces a villain who is actually just a manufactured patsy created from an amalgam of fear inducing images set up to claim resposibility for a a series of false flags or to frame the insane and sometimes ridiculous battle sequence at the conclusion of The Avengers as a 9/11 level event which results in the appointment of The Iron Patriot (Act), and yet another villain whose motivation is to corner the market on the "war on terror". Pretty prescient material for a tent pole popcorn flick. 

Maybe I'm reading too much into things and maybe am a bit too optimistic, but I think I see a somewhat positive trend forming within the world of the mega-budget blockbuster. Iron Man 3 is definitely a step in the right direction and some of the upcoming summer releases like Pacific Rim and Elysium are original properties that have the potential to be both entertaining and relevant. I'm curious how far they're going to go with The Hunger Games series, but these are all subjects for later in the year. All I'll say about those films for now is that if they are going to test the limits of cinema and maybe present a few interesting insights then I wish them all the success in the world. We need more like them.