Heavy metal hero

Amazing action, stunning special effects, classic comedy and a hefty helping of blistering one-liners can mean only one thing … Iron Man 3.

I was invited by Audi Centre Bahrain to a special preview screening at Cineco 20 at Bahrain City Centre. Luckily for me, I was holding on to my socks because this movie would otherwise have knocked them off.

This third instalment of the Marvel franchise sees billionaire inventor Tony Stark (Downey Jr) lost in adulation after his planet-saving heroics at the end of The Avengers. However, he’s not able to enjoy it because he’s been plagued with insomnia and anxiety attacks ever since.

Since he can’t sleep, Stark spends his time doing the only thing that comes naturally to him, besides sarcasm, womanising and blowing things up – building new robotic suits. Having put his insomnia to good use, he’s amassed quite a collection … although things don’t always work quite the way he’d hoped, to comical effect.

His relationship with Pepper Potts (Paltrow) is also suffering as a result of the post-traumatic stress of the attempted alien invasion but the two are trying to work it out.

It’s a bold move for Black to examine the ‘realistic’ after effects of going through an alien invasion and, despite the healthy amount of humour, this gives the film a darker feel than its predecessors.

Add to the mix, Aldrich Killian (Pearce), a rival scientist Stark once snubbed, who has now developed an unstable ‘brain upgrade’ called Extremis, which can rearrange DNA to repair damaged bodies.

At first his motives seem altruistic, but things and people are not always what they seem ... especially in this movie.

Meanwhile, a global terrorist known as The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) – an ethnically vague villain – is using explosive new methods to kill innocent people and then broadcasting bin Laden-style videos about it. After one of Stark’s friends is injured in one of the attacks, Iron Man vows revenge against The Mandarin.

After publicly throwing down the gauntlet, The Mandarin willingly picks it up and Stark’s home is destroyed following an epic fight scene, which sees Pepper briefly don the Iron Man suit. To make matters worse, Stark’s gleaming Audi R8 and Pepper’s sleek S7 are also reduced to scrap metal, a sad sight to behold.

At the end of the battle Stark finds himself in the middle of nowhere with his self esteem in even worse shape than his broken prototype suit … a crippling blow for the egocentric billionaire.

He has to rebuild his suit and his confidence, which wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t also in a race against time to save the recently kidnapped Pepper and US president!

At its heart, this movie is about relationships. Of course, there’s Stark’s established relationships with Pepper and Rhodey AKA War Machine (Don Cheadle), but the best bits come from his interactions with Harley, a gadget-obsessed youngster.

Harley helps Stark when he needs it most by giving him a limited edition Dora the Explorer watch, trust me, it’s funnier than it sounds and that watch makes numerous comical reappearances.

Some of the film’s best moments come from the interactions between Stark and Harley. The pair has great chemistry and the banter is what you’d expect when a narcissistic billionaire has to rely on a petulant child.

Iron Man 3 also has one of the best comical plot twists surrounding a villain I’ve seen in years and, for me, Kingsley’s portrayal is nothing short of spectacular. He has some incredibly written dialogue, which he delivers in faultless fashion.

Downey Jr is also (predictably) brilliant. He’s perfected the narcissistic, deadpan delivery, which really brings the script to life and it’s not just the words, it’s the accompanying facial expressions and subtle gestures that really sell the character.

Paltrow also gets her chance to shine by stepping out of the archaic damsel in distress role from the preceding films. She handles her role with gusto and adds to the story rather than simply being a part of it.

The thing I loved about this movie is that for the majority of it, Stark is without his weaponised suit and must rely on his wit, brains and some new friends to overcome his new adversary.

In The Avengers, Captain America asks Stark what he is without the Iron Man suit to which he quips ‘genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist’ … nail on the head!

At the end of the first instalment, it’s revealed that Iron Man is Tony Stark, but in this film, the point being made is that Tony Stark is Iron Man, with or without the armoured suit.

Showing in Cineco, Saar Cineplex, Seef I, Seef II, Al Jazeera Cineplex l