Self-mockery, not arms, maketh the man

Self-mockery, not arms, maketh the man

It is Iron Man's personality, or rather Robert Downey Jr's calibration of it, which makes this superhero franchise really crackle

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Self-mockery, not arms, maketh the man

Hollywood's blockbuster season kicks off with a trustworthy bang _ plus a self-referential wink and a whiff of homeland politics to regale the liberals.

Iron Man 3

Starring Robert Downy Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley. Directed by Shane Black. Released in 2D, 3D and Imax.

Robert Downey Jr rolls his eyes, cocks his head and goes about the business of saving the US president, the world, children, lovers (past and present), parachute-less White House aides, none of this motivated by conscience or patriotism but out of boredom, maybe, or just the petulant impulse of a wealthy, insomniac scientist-playboy with time and money to waste.

That he's able to laugh at himself, at his own anxiety and clumsiness, sets Tony Stark _ but not necessarily Iron Man _ apart from the morbid, self-absorbed Bruce Wayne-type vigilantes (sadly, the new Clark Kent looks set to follow in Wayne's portentous footsteps). Stark is a boy with toys or, at best, a young adult.

All superheroes are deeply insecure; Stark likewise, except that he seems to enjoy that state.

If you just want the lowdown ... Iron Man 3 is genuine good fun. Nothing to swoon about, but it's satisfactorily entertaining from beginning to end, with a good dose of photogenic destruction, a narrow escape, bloodless massacre and slo-mo bombings.

This time around, it's Stark/Iron Man against two megalomaniacs: the bearded, quasi-Islamic, Osama-inspired terrorist called Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), and mad scientist Aldrich Killian (played by an appropriately reptilian Guy Pearce) who was once snubbed by Stark and is now back with a weaponised biochemical invention that allows dead soldiers to become volcanic fireballs, dripping vengeance and lava.

Meanwhile, the Iron Man gizmo gets a cool tinkering with. This time around, Stark has several suits of armour to don (not just the one) and he can telepathically summon them up and command them to encase his body; we get a couple of swooshing sequences when he does that in mid-air. The metaphor is also clear: for a long stretch we get to see Stark as Stark, not as Iron Man. It's the inner man, rather than the metal carapace, that's responsible for the super-heroics. Well, sort of. Indeed, it's Stark's personality, or rather Downey Jr's calibration of it, which makes this franchise really crackle. Humour is what we need more of in superhero narratives because this saving-the-world business is, after all, either supremely fascistic or just downright delusional.

Director Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), taking over from the promoted Jon Favreau, makes sure to let Stark look like a bumbling buffoon from time to time, with some of his jokes veering towards the moronic _ delightfully moronic. This ability to take himself less seriously makes Iron Man endearing, and Downey Jr, cantankerous and quirky, gives us an antidote to the trend towards the brooding, self-important caped crusader/thug/warrior (besides Batman, there are quite a few in the Avengers gang). Stark is also rare for a superhero in that he has a live-in girlfriend and they have a relationship that seems to be working; isn't it good to know that sex doesn't sap the energy of superhumans?

Gwyneth Paltrow, as Pepper Potts, is elevated here from a mere prop to a real character; she even gets to show off her muscles and bad-ass fury when that is required. In fact, the enraged Paltrow/Potts is a lot more appealing to watch than Scarlett Johannson's Black Widow in The Avengers. Maybe Marvel will upgrade her to Super-Potts? And why not? The dearth of superheroines is worrying to all genders and ages.

And, finally, we get to the villain. By making the Mandarin (in the version made for screening in China he becomes "Man-daren" to avoid offending the censors there; see other story below) into a faintly Middle Eastern nihilist with a Pakistani cave hideout, it's obvious which real-life person this character was modelled on (but will this cause offence to Pakistan instead?).

In the original Iron Man, released back in 2008, Stark is captured by tribal warriors in Waziristan and yet he ends up saving the people there. In this latest instalment, what seems like a stereotypical characterisation of terrorists is actually just bait, because _ despite all the militarism, brazen show of force and patriotic tendencies _ all superheroes (bar Batman, I suspect) are at heart Democrats who vote for Obama and are against the war on terror. Well, sort of. As Iron Man 3 tries to make clear _ or at least as crystal as a film of its type is capable of being.

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