The summer blockbuster season is upon us and we open with the return of our beloved Tony Stark, the Iron Man.
Overall, Iron Man 3 lived up to my expectations of a comic book movie, especially one produced by Disney. The plot is fairly simple: Disillusioned genius scientist puts his skills on the free market and turns to evil. Our hero, aided by his sometimes sidekick, Col. Rhodes, his steady girlfriend, Pepper Potts and a plucky kid with a knack for causing panic attacks, must face his own PTSD demons while battling the growing threat posed by the Mandarin, played quite ably by Sir Kingsley.
The story picks up after the events of the Avengers and Tony is having problems sleeping due to the the trauma of learning both aliens and Norse gods exists. Strangely, the US is still more concerned about religiously motivated terrorism than they are about OMG ALIENS and GODS! Anyway...
Mr. Bad Guy Pants has recruited wounded vets and using an experiment process created by Tony's one-night-stand Maya, turns them into super soldiers. Queue the final showdown - Tony, Rhodes and Potts vs. an army of super soldiers and Killian.
This movie takes a few faltering steps away from the comic cliches in its treatment of three female characters. While none are the main movers and shakers, they have their own moments to shine. Sadly, these are almost immediately overshadowed by the boys. When Maya takes a stand, demonstrating her moral courage, she's shot. When Brandt fights Tony, she's blown up. When Pepper saves Tony and herself from Killian, she turns right back into the uncertain girl, full of quivering pleas for comfort "Am I going to be alright?", thus putting a lie to her single moment of badassery.
I'm encouraged that scriptwriters and movie producers are trying to give their females roles outside of the classic damsel in distress or femme fetal. I'm looking forward to more efforts and a day when women feel just as included at a Marvel movie as men do.
Great post, Molly! Iron Man III was awesome!
ReplyDeleteI was hoping to see more Pepper-in-action saving the day. Although, the movie does portray her as smart and organized (She runs Stark Industries - no problem). I was hoping she'd wear the suit for longer than one minute. Where's the Pepper suit? ;-)
Hi Kristin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. I do agree that Pepper is really a totally capable woman who's running a billion dollar business. She deserves a lot of credit for that. The movie does show us that, but in little snips and it's treated like a footnote to Tony.
Like I said, I think comic book movies are getting better and I'm glad you went and enjoyed the movie, even if I did post some spoilers (bad Molly!)