Embrace your creed

The movie juggles between Tony's trauma after the events that took place in The Avengers and his past (before Iron Man).

In Iron man 2, the story was based on one of the character's key story arc in the comic books.  'Demon in a bottle' portrays Tony Stark's struggle as an alcoholic.  Honestly, the movie didn't executed it well because of the number of actions; overshadowing the emotional points of the film.  I, personally, wasn't fond of the villain.  His gritty style and background was just forced.  His idiom was also, to me, ridiculous.

"If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in him, there will be blood in the water, the sharks will come."
-Ivan Vanko/Whiplash-

Really? I get the god bleeding part but sharks? It just seems too random.  Plus, I could barely see his final armor design and it wasn't even promoted with posters.


Thankfully, Iron man 3 resembles Tony Stark's legacy very well with character build ups, plot twist, respecting the source material (However, this is debatable, I would get into that later) and metaphors.  We get to see more of Tony without the suit; revealing more and more depths of what the character is like in person.  I especially love how some scenes portray Tony's emotional reliance with this armor; like how the Mark 42 suit activates during his sleep or when he dragged it in the snow after his mansion was destroyed.

Now, to me, the film used the source material very well.  After watching the film, I read an article regarding the comic book that it was based on; Extremis (Thank god I read after the film or that would be major spoilers for me).  In the comic, the power of Extremis is popular for turning Tony Stark into a cyborg but as you've already seen the film, Tony didn't used it.  The power and story of Extremis was used very well, to me, as we get to see a more suitable super powered villain for Iron Man.  It seemed like the Iron Man movie franchised would never use super human beings as it focuses more on Science and gadgets.  The Extremis resolves around Scientific explanation and heat based powers.  The heat based powers were simple and strong enough to fit in this Iron Man story.  This is the part where it's debatable, The Mandarin's plot twist.

My first reaction:
I laughed (It was meant to be funny and it was). I was impress that the film went that far with a major plot twist.  A straight action popcorn flick has no good twist.  So, I knew then that this film was intended to be a good story.  But after watching a few reviews, I realized that Batman Begins sort of had a similar thing going on with Ra's Al Ghul (One of my favorite movie comic book villains).  The thing is, that plot twist was both awesome and respectful because in the end, Ra's Al Ghul does exist as a person.  The Mandarin, technically, doesn't.  The Mandarin was just a symbol, a media conspiracy, a face for evil and if you think about it, it's really good writing.  The problem for some fans is that The Mandarin was used.  The Mandarin is an iconic villain for the Iron Man comic book and I understand that.  Personally, I see the Iron Man movie franchise uses Science and gadgets as it's theme (Then again, it could be change due to The Avengers).  The Mandarin is a supernatural character and I just don't see him fitting in the film.  Be that as it may, Ben Kingsley was just awesome! He actually pulled it off.  It was interesting to see The Mandarin was portrayed as a middle eastern man.  The Mandarin's lines were also executed well; distinctive and threatening.  It was all diminish with the plot twist.  What about Aldrich Killian? Was he good?

Aldrich Killian, so far, is the best villain for Iron Man.  He's a genius billionaire playboy himself; a worthy rival for Tony Stark.  His background story with Tony before the events of Iron man was also just nice; it wasn't forced or cheesy.  The fact that Killian used The Mandarin gimmick just shows you how dangerously smart he can be.  So, in summary, with the case of The Mandarin's plot twist, I approve of it.


What about other characters? Well, it's pretty interesting to see how they used the Iron Patriot 'name'.  Iron Patriot was actually Norman Osborne in the comics.  But here, it was just a change of name and look for War Machine.  The movie itself even mocked the name.  By the way, War Machine was changed to Iron Patriot because it would be suitable name for a hero that represents America which is a pretty darn good reason for me.  And here's another interesting plot point in the movie that I feel like they use the idea of Tony being injected with Extremis; Pepper Potts was injected with it.  I like it because it's something that you don't see with love interests.  Sure, she was cured in the end (As was Tony with his chest) but it still had an effect towards the ending where Pepper gets the last hit instead of Tony.


Last but not least, the Iron man suits.  It seemed like everybody got to wear a suit...even the president! Though I was glad that it wasn't too forced.  Like when Tony gave the suit to Pepper to save her; it wasn't a brief epic moment for her to be action packed (But she got it in the end).  The suits were just awesome; no complaints.  I'm even planning on buying Mark 42 figure.  Oh yes, speaking of Mark 42, the suit was really weak in arsenals.  It was a prototype suit; no heavy weapons but it was able to be controlled with Tony's thoughts.  The suit could also be broken apart unlike the other suits that were only in one piece (I loved it very much by the way).  Another aspect of the film that regards the suit is that the film is a giant leap for the Iron man story.  Maybe it's just me but superheroes need to age in films.  You won't see a perfect or a mature deconstruct story of the hero in the early years of it's film debut.  Take a look at Batman for instance.  He had a series in the 60s, a dark movie in 1989 and a few bad ones.  It took more than 5 decades for Christopher Nolan to arrive and save The Batman mythology.  It's a major leap for Iron man because the story is now deep story, a remarkable story of 'facing your demon', Iron Patriot is there (New comic book characters usually won't be on screen unless it's been around for a long time), The Mandarin (Whom is Iron Man's arch nemesis though, again, this is debatable) and the ever popular House party protocol (The suits).  I guess, Marvel is really stepping up in the game.