Plenty of cinema goers (myself definitely included) will have been left wondering exactly what direction any of the heroes involved could possibly go in a post-Avengers world. Would The Hulk hold down a steady coffee house job? Would Thor open his own chain of hair salons? Would we have a film where Captain America studies, in a Johnny 5 style in order to catch up on all the possible cultural references he'll be missing out on? I'd probably watch the latter. The answer is surprisingly simple: how does Tony Stark cope with life being as "back to normal" (at least as normal as it gets for him) after witnessing and thwarting the attack on New York by an alien army.
The crux of the story is this: Tony Stark has been shaken mentally by the events of New York, and it's having an effect on his relationship with Pepper Potts. He's become obsessed with building a seemingly endless line of armoured suits. Meanwhile, a super-terrorist going by the name of The Mandarin is unleashing scenes of total devastation upon America, and seems to have links to a previous acquaintance of Stark, in Aldrich Killian, pioneer of the creation of the Extremis virus. Stark must overcome his fragile mental state in order to solve the mystery of the Mandarin, find out who he really is, and bring an end to his attacks. Simple enough, really.
Robert Downey Jnr, as his character declared in the very first film, is Iron Man, he is cast perfectly as the eccentric, egotistical, witty and charismatic Tony Stark, that much we already knew. However, his new fragility allows RDJ to show a more tender side of the character, which his delivers with aplomb. Naturally though, despite just how down Stark gets, he's full of his trademark humour with every situation, and at no point does the mood of the character put a dampener on the film itself. Support comes from Gwyneth Paltrow reprising the Pepper Potts character, who is explored a little more here, with a non-spoiler experiment on the whole damsel-in-distress scenario. Also reprising his role in the franchise is Don Cheadle as Rhodey aka The Iron Patriot, who ups his game somewhat in how close he becomes to Stark, up to the point where we find him also making Starkish wisecracks. Sir Ben Kingsley fills the boots of the enigmatic Mandarin, and delivers an exceptionally chilling vision of an extremely powerful terrorist, attention to detail going down to his accent, sounding just American enough to unhinge you from what you'd expect, given his near-stereotypical terrorist appearance. Guy Pearce gives a pleasing showing as Killian, the once crippled scientist turned suave think-tank leader, he never lets you know where anyone stands with the character, and at no point are we sure if we should trust him.
The film just looks like a Marvel movie, it's very bright and colour-focused, and, as has become somewhat of a trademark, it just looks like a comic strip. The only real issue I had with the the visual quality of the film is that the effects used for the Extremis virus are somewhat cheesy, but whether or not that simply adds to the feel of a comic book is, I guess, up to the viewer.
The whole story runs very smoothly, and at no point did I ever find myself feeling bored. What's more, the issue of how a superhero movie could work in the Marvel universe after The Avengers was comfortably dealt with, and is definitely encouraging for the releases of the next Thor and Captain America films. It's not spectacular, but it ticks all the boxes you'd want from a new Iron Man movie.
4/5 - Genuinely enjoyable, and very much worth a watch. Builds the excitement up for what Marvel have to offer in the next couple of films. There's a great deal of spoilers to be had though, so I really cannot go into much more detail, but trust me, there are a lot of hugely fun and unexpected moments in the film which are all very much key to the story.
P.S.
There is a scene after the credits, just you have to wait slightly longer than normal. It's not much, but it's another thing to make Marvel fans go all gooey.
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