By Dan Howes

There are two important facts about Iron Man 3. One is that, unlike its predecessors, the latest film in the hugely popular Marvel franchise is written and directed by the very talented Shane Black, who made a writing career for himself in Hollywood with the screenplay that became Lethal Weapon before getting behind the camera on 2005’s Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Black’s comedic chops as a writer and Howard Hawks-like direction of actors is a perfect and welcomed fit for a comic book series that has been threatening to collapse under it’s own weight, especially after the passable but bloated Iron Man 2. The other important fact about Iron Man 3 is that it cost an enormous $200 million to produce. This astronomical sum of money is definitely made apparent on screen, especially in the digitally explosive and perhaps inevitably bombastic final set piece.

I say these two facts are important because they spend much of the film at odds with each other, battling for screen-time and the audience's attention. One scene will offers us expensive computer enhanced destruction, so similar to that which we’ve seen before that it almost comes across as white noise. Then, the next scene strips everything down to allow two or three talented actors to just play and do what they’re best at. Of particular note is a hilarious collection of scenes between Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark and a kid named Harley in small-town Tennessee. Their tet-a-tet is wickedly smart, and young actor Ty Simpkins is able to hold his own against the veteran star of the picture in a believable and charming fashion that avoids any of the precocious child pitfalls which typically plague franchise movies. These simple and funny scenes are the most entertaining and enjoyable in the film.

While the title is Iron Man 3, this latest Marvel picture is also partially a sequel to last year’s comic book supergroup film The Avengers, mostly in the form of Tony Stark’s insomnia and reoccurring panic attacks as a result of his experiences in that previous screen adventure. Luckily, unlike Iron Man 2, this movie is not shackled too tightly to the larger Marvel universe and manages to tell its own self-contained story, albeit a somewhat recycled and predictable one.

The villain this time around is The Mandarin, a classic in the Iron Man canon, rendered here as a pan-ethnic international terrorist carrying out mysterious bombings around the U.S. while making unspecific demands. Sir Ben Kingsley is of course a great choice for this antagonist and shows admirable restraint in a role that could easily give an actor an insatiable appetite for scenery. Don Cheadle returns as Stark’s sidekick, Jim Rhodes AKA Warhammer (or Iron Patriot as the Pentagon rebrands him), but he doesn’t have a whole lot going on, and only shows up when the plot needs him to. Gwyneth Paltrow is also still around as Tony’s girlfriend/business partner Pepper Potts, and as usual her only reason for existing is to give Iron Man something to rescue at the climax. There are a couple half-hearted attempts to give her a little more agency and self-determination, but those are tossed aside quickly, as if the filmmakers feared that any hint of feminism would instantly chase the coveted 18 to 35-year-old male demographic right out of the theater. There is even a scene late in the film when both Tony Stark and Pepper Potts are separately held captive, but Tony is able to escape while Pepper just hangs in her shackles helplessly like a wet noodle.

Despite it’s CGI-drenched action sequences and familiar plot, Iron Man 3 makes for a fun time at the movies, especially when the explosions subside for a few minutes and the actors are allowed to do their work.

Iron Man 3 is rated PG-13, runs 130 minutes, and is playing at Ballard’s Majestic Bay. For more info and showtimes, visit www.majesticbay.com

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