Iron Man 3

I loved this movie! As far as the Iron Man trilogy goes I would say that this movie is my second favorite. The first movie takes the number one spot for me simply because it really brought the character off the pages of the comic book and made him come alive on the big screen. For another person's opinion check out Big Shiny Robot's review of the film. 

The movie by itself stands on it's own. It made $175 million in it's opening weekend according to Forbes. Which is impressive alone but other then the success the movie had at the box office is the fact that it took the character Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) to a whole new level. Unlike the other two movies we see Stark out of the Iron Man armor more then we do in it. Which was great because it allowed Downey to really shine in his role. We get a glimsp into Stark as a man and the inner conflict he is going through while he fights the newest villain (I use that term loosely) to hit the screen, The Mandarin (played by Ben Kingsley). 

Some of the best moments of the film are the scenes between Stark and a 9-10  year old kid Harley Keener (played by Ty Simpkins). You will laugh and maybe even cry if not on the outside at least on the inside during the film and if you enjoy superheroes it will be one you add to your shelf when it comes out on dvd on September 24 of this year. I give the film 4 out of 5 stars definitely a must see for the both the casual and hardcore superhero fan alike.

Speaking of you hardcore superhero fans if you find anything in this post that is incorrect please let me know. While I am a pretty big comic geek fan myself I don't pretend to know everything about each hero. 

Origin

Original Armor

Who is Iron Man because this is the fourth movie (including The Avengers) about the hero I am going to jump back just a little bit to explain who he is and where the character really started. Anthony Stark is Iron Man's secret identity. Stark built the armor after he was imprisoned by a terrorist orgainisation led by Wong Chu. and told to make a weapon they could use against their enemies. During the kidnapping of Stark a land mine went off and a piece of shrapnel got stuck near Stark's heart. The terrorist put him in a cell with another prisoner named Ho Yinsen who was a physicist. Stark knew that he wouldn't live long with the shrapnel in his chest so he came up with the idea to work with Yinsen and build a battle suit that he had been developing which would use a magnetic field to keep the shrapnel from hitting his heart. In so doing the first Iron Man armor was made. We see some of this in the first movie with a few changes like Yinsen coming up with the idea of putting a magnet in Stark's chest to save his life. In the comics like in the first Iron man film while the armor was being powered up some of the terrorist tried to get into the room Stark and Yinsen were in and in order to buy Stark time Yinsen went to destract them and was shot to death during the act. Using the newly built armor Stark destroys the Wong Chu camp and avenges Yinsens death.

***From this point on this post contains spoilers from Iron Man 3***

The movie starts off with Stark talking to someone about where everything started. He recalls a New Years Eve party in 1999. While he is walking around we actually get to see Yinsen as he compliments Stark on the speech he just gave. This was a nice little tip of the hat back to the first movie where Yinsen talks about this very meeting which Stark cant recall properly because he was too drunk. During the party we meet Maya Hansen and we get to see her newest invention Extremis. Which to sum up is a regenerative treatment that is suppossed to allow crippled people to regrow their limps. Aldrich Killian shows up at the party and offers them both a job at his "think tank" which he calls A.I.M. which stands for Advanced Idea Mechanics. Stark being the hero we all know and love turns him down by sending him up to the roof with the promise of joining him shortly. Which of course he never does because he is to proud and more focused on spending the night with Hansen.

Fast forward years ahead to the events of The Avengers movie where Stark almost dies in the worm hole the aliens are coming through. Because of that event he has severe panic attacks. To try and cope with this he has built a ton of different Iron Man suits with his newest one being Mach 42. Meaning there are 42 other suits somewhere. All this time with the suits has made his girlfriend Pepper Potts very upset. During all of this there have been a series of terrorist attacks for which The Mandarin takes credit. But no evidence is left behind for any clues as to where The Mandarin may be hiding. Happy Hogan, Stark's driver in the other films, now is the head of security for Stark Industries follows a suspicious employee of Aldrich Killian's and is caught in one of the bombings by The Mandarin. After this Stark issues a televised threat to The Mandarin and as a result his house is attacked (not a good idea to give out your home address to terrorists, even if you are a superhero) Stark survives the attack and so does Pepper because of the new armor Stark created that allows him to control it without being in it. Stark throws the armor onto Potts and once she is safe summons the armor back to him. Once on J.A.R.V.I.S. the AI of the suit pilots the suit to Tennessee because of lead Stark found on The Mandarin just before the attack. The suit lacks power and forces Stark to drag it through the snow until he stumbles across a house. Stark breaks into the house and we meet Harley Keener

Harley helps Stark checks out the site of a local explosion that matches The Mandarin attacks. It turns out the bombings are soldiers who have taken Extremis and for lack of a better word overdose and explode. The Mandarin used theses deaths to cover up the Extremis flaws by manufacturing a terrorist plot. Stark discovers this and is then attacked by two Mandarin agents in the town, he defeats them and then leaves the town.

With help of his new found sidekick Harley, Stark finds the Mandarin’s hideout in Miami of all places. Because his suit is still low on power he builds improvised weapons. Once face to face with The Mandarin, Stark discovers he is really just a British actor name Trevor Slattery who claims that he had no idea everything he was doing was real, he thought it was all just for show.

Turns out The Mandarin is really the creation of Killian who has been working with Maya Hansen since that New Years Eve party in 1999. Using Extremis to cure his own disability and that of the injured veterans Killian has grown his AIM Company and by using The Mandarin he is able to control both sides of the war. After Killian captures Stark he explains that he has also kidnapped Potts and injected her with the techno virus to force Stark to fix the problems with Extremis. Killian kills Hansen after she tries to save Stark and Potts for feeling guilty about the attacks she has been apart of.

While all of this is going on Killian has also used corrupt members of the American intelligence agencies to give false reports about where The Mandarin’s hideout is. In so doing James Rhodes who was War Machine in Iron Man 2 is now called The Iron Patriot. He lures Rhodes into a trap in order to steal the Iron Patriot armor. Stark escapes and finds Rhodes who is no longer in the armor and realizes that Killian is using the armor to attack Air Force One. Using the remote control system Stark saves some of the passengers and crew from falling to their deaths but is unable to stop the President from being abducted. After Stark and Rhodes track Killian to an damaged oil tanker where he is planning on killing the president which would leave the corrupt Vice President free to take over the oval office. Not only does he get the Presidential seat but his crippled daughter would no longer have her disability.

On the oil tanker Stark goes to rescue Potts and Rhodes saves the president. Stark because they are outnumbered by various Extremis soldiers summons all of his Iron Man suits which are controlled by J.A.R.V.I.S. to even the odds.  Rhodes gets the President to safety and Stark finds Potts who has survived the Extremis procedure. But before he can get to her the platform she is on collapses and she falls to her “death”.  Stark does battle with Killian and uses one of the Iron Man suits to trap him inside and then orders the suit to self-destruct. Because of Extremis Killian doesn’t die and reveals that he is the real Mandarin. Potts who survives the fall because of the Extremis powers jump in and kills Killian and saves Stark.

With the battle over Stark orders J.A.R.V.I.S. to remotely destroy all of the remaining Iron Man suits as a sign of his love to Potts. The VP is arrested and Stark helps remove the Extremis from Potts. Stark also has surgery to remove the shrapnel embedded near his heart. He then throws the arc reactor that has been in his chest into the ocean saying that he will always be Iron Man.

After the credits there is a scene where Stark wakes up Dr. Bruce Banner who has fallen asleep from the very beginning of the story.

Comics vs Moives

Alright so Iron Man 3 and for that matter the trilogy definitely changed some things from the comics.  Listed below are the ones I could see. If I missed any or am wrong about something please let me know.

Jarvis

Jarvis from the comics

JARVIS the AI system we meet in the first movie in the comics is actually Stark’s butler whose name is Edwin Jarvis. After the Avengers were formed he became the butler and father figure for any member of the Avengers who stayed at the mansion. He is one of the only person who has been with The Avengers since the team was established.

Iron Patriot

Iron Patriot is the name of a villain from the Marvel universe, it is actually Norman Osborn who is known for being the Green Goblin one of Spider-Man’s villians. Osborn is in his own version of that looks just like it did in the move without the gun on the shoulder. He calls himself the Iron Patriot when he makes his own evil version of the avengers and combines Iron Man and Captain America’s look/names into his own.

Iron Patriot from Iron Man 3

Iron Patriot from the comics

The Mandarin

The Mandarin from the comics

The biggest change had to be with The Mandarin. Going into the movie I was so excited that we were finally getting a movie with Mandarin as the bad guy. He is one of Iron Man’s biggest and most famous villains. His powers come from 10 rings he wears on his fingers. The rings are extraterrestrial technology which he uses for his quest to rule the world and defeat Iron Man.  He is also a genius and uses earth’s technology “hand in hand” with the alien rings. He is also a great athlete, swordsman and martial artist. The movie version of The Mandarin being just a paid actor and the creation of “the real” Mandarin Killian was a huge disappointment to me as a comic book geek. Killian in the comics is really a nobody and Mandarin is a big deal but for whatever reason in the movie they combined the two. Most comic book fans found this to be a hard pill to swallow myself included. They also tried to be cleaver and call the terrorists “The Ten Rings” to me was them trying to do a tip of the hat to comic book fans who understand the source of Mandarins power.

This story change also led to a few plot holes the biggest one being that if Killian is the “real” Mandarin who is the leader of the terrorist group know as The Ten Rings, who is also the group that kidnapped Stark in the first movie that means that Killian has been running things along and that doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense because it is never mentioned until now. That is also a question that movie goers never really receive an answer to.

Extremis Armor

Extremis

Introducing Extremis also gives us hope of the Extremis armor. Stark injects himself with the virus. In the comics Extremis is a virus that heals peoples wounds and turns them into a super soldier giving them increased strength and abilities but the person injected does not exploded. The virus is created by Hansen and Killian and sold to terrorists. While trying to recover the virus Iron Man is injured and has no choice but to inject himself with a modified version of the virus to heal his wounds. This modified version of the virus allows Stark to create a new armor set that responds to his brain waves at all times and allows him to store his armor in the hollow of his bones and throughout the rest of his body to be called upon at any time.

Easter Eggs

Rescue, Pepper Potts suit

Some other Easter Eggs or tips of the hat would be seeing Potts in the Iron Man suit and rescuing Hansen in the house. The reason for this is that in the comics Potts gets her own suit from Stark and is know as Rescue. Her suit has no weapons and is meant purely as a rescue unit.  It was a lot of fun to see her in a suit and saving a citizen. It was also at that point that the AI JARVIS got introduced in the comics. He helped run her suit and taught her how to use the suit to its fullest.

A.I.M.

Lastly would be the mention of A.I.M. in the comics A.I.M. stands like in the movie for Advance Idea Mechanics. It is a group of scientists who use their knowledge and inventions as a group of terrorists. 

Over all even with the changes that were made I enjoyed this movie. I just have to think of all the comic books movies as their own separate universe and I can still pop my popcorn, sit down and enjoy as one of my favorite heroes comes to life on the big screen.