The irked a lot of fans.
Wrong: The Mandarin twist
There was a way to make the Mandarin twist work – it makes a good point about feared terrorist leaders in the public conscious being controlled by unseen puppet-masters and it’s a totally unexpected plot turn – but might be the MCU’s biggest missed opportunity.
Right: Tony Stark’s character development
Although the a near-death experience with a Stark Industries bomb) and decided to help others rather than himself. And as much as Marvel fans might rag on Iron Man 3, Shane Black arguably understood the Tony Stark character better than any other MCU director. By taking away his tech and forcing him to face the villains without it, Black showed us that Tony really is a hero.
Wrong: Unfocused second movie
There’s a lot in too bogged down in setting up the wider MCU.
Black Widow was crammed into it instead of getting her own solo movie and Nick Fury spent the whole movie harping on about the “Avengers Initiative.” Iron Man 2 was too preoccupied with setting the stage for The Avengers that it failed to be a great movie on its own.
Right: Working the events of The Avengers into the plot
All throughout Iron Man 3, Tony suffers from PTSD following his trip through a wormhole during the Battle of New York. People do suffer psychological damage after near-death experiences and it would’ve been disingenuous if Iron Man 3 ignored what had just happened to Tony in a wider plot of the MCU. The ongoing threat of the Mandarin in the early scenes of Iron Man 3 is deftly woven into his post-traumatic stress. Even though it was the very first case of a solo movie following on from a team-up movie, it still stands as one of the most effective.
Wrong: Recasting James Rhodes
After the first Iron Man movie, there was the role should’ve never been recast and Howard was ideal for it.
Right: Origin story
The MCU’s origin stories are this is as good as it gets.
Wrong: Finishing too early
Producer Kevin Feige is a huge fan of the trilogy as a narrative technique. To be fair, there is a solo movie at each stage of the MCU. His character arc only reached a certain stage by the end of his own trilogy and the rest of it spilled into other people’s movies. It would’ve been interesting to see an Iron Man movie in Phase 3.
Right: Blending action and humor
Tony Stark is a pop culture-inspired nickname for everyone and he has the perfect quip for every situation. But he’s also a superhero who flies through the sky and blows up bad guys. It can be tough to reconcile the two.
A lot of MCU movies struggle to walk the fine line between humor and action, often Robert Downey, Jr.’s mesmerizing performance in the role of Stark.
Wrong: Villains
Despite adhering to the cliché of the father figure who turns out to be evil, Obadiah Stane was a pretty great villain, but he was also the last great villain in the Iron Man trilogy. Iron Man 2 had two villains – Whiplash and Justin Hammer – and they were both boring and unnecessary. The true villain in that movie was the U.S. government, so they could’ve both been cut without compromising the film at all. The big twist in Iron Man 3 was that the Mandarin was a fake all along, and the real guy pulling the strings was Aldrich Killian, who was disappointing, to put it nicely. Killian was set up as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, which could’ve been interesting and led to an actually engaging twist if Guy Pearce hadn’t played the character as a mustache-twirling villain.
Right: The perfect ending
While the real ending to Iron Man’s character arc would come six years later in tosses his now-useless arc reactor into the ocean. If Tony Stark’s story had ended there, perhaps it still would’ve been satisfying.
