Iron and Pine

Plans for those recent Kraftwerk gigs went through several unsuccessful drafts

On paper, Iron Man 3 wasn't quite the home banker that some may have thought. Whilst Robert Downey Jr's show-stealing turn in Avengers Assemble arguably made up for the lacklustre second instalment of his own franchise, did this merely prove that the character was best taken in smaller doses rather than as a chaotic focal point of the action?

With their third Stark-starring film though, Marvel have proven themselves once again to be no mugs, giving the Tony Stark character a post-Avengers hangover to deal with but wisely maintaining the series's identity by keeping any crossover characters out of the mix. Plus, they've executed something of a coup by handing the director's chair to Shane "Lethal Weapon" Black.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should confess at this point to never having seen anything else which Black has written or directed. Good job I'm not positioning myself as some kind of movie expert, huh? Still, on this evidence his reputation for snappy, wiseass dialogue hasn't deserted him after what you might call his wilderness years. Quite how such a talent was allowed to remain dormant for so long is one of Hollywood's all-too-common mysteries, but what with the presence of his buddy Downey and the fast-talking foundations laid by the earlier movies, Black fits the franchise like a glove.

The scenes where Tony, marooned in a midwestern town, forms a relationship with a local kid are a masterclass in subverting expectations, and are by no means the only example of this trick. This helps to disguise a plot that isn't tremendously complicated despite a few superficial twists and turns. It can be summed up as: Tony sad, Tony stressed, Tony makes rash challenge to terrorist, terrorist bomb Tony's house, Tony ends up in the middle of nowhere and separated from Pepper and his suits, Tony comes back to beat the bad guys and make everything right again. (To be fair, there is a corker of a twist about two thirds in, which has annoyed many people but genuinely made me smile.)

But IM3's strengths lie elsewhere. The dialogue, obviously. The menacing introduction of Ben Kingsley's Mandarin, whose terror-casts tap neatly into real-life fears. Guy Pearce's nerd-turned-SuperTycoon character, who is clearly not everything he seems. Rebecca Hall adds some more eye candy for the discerning gentlemen of the audience. And the action sequences are top-notch as per, the final battle being sufficiently different to previous editions so as to not feel repetitive.

Ultimately there was always a risk of this (and other subsequent "Mono-Hero" titles) feeling somewhat small beer after the world-gobbling success of the Avengers epic. But IM3 presents us with high enough stakes both on a wider (US government under terrorist threat) and more personal scale (Tony's mental struggles, and avenging an attack on his friend) to make us care about what is ultimately always going to end up as big robots hitting each other. Although it's never going to match the psychological intrigue of Nolan's Batman trilogy, Iron Man has done a good job overall of delivering smarter than average blockbuster fare.


The Place Beyond The Pines

I should also admit to not having seen Blue Valentine, the first collaboration between Ryan Gosling and director Derek Cianfrance, either, although if it's anything like TPBTP I'm guessing it's earnest, realist and boasts a near-somnambulant performance from the male lead. The latter is not a criticism by the way - Gosling is an intriguing actor in that he underplays so much that you might start to conclude that he's not really trying, which makes any chinks of emotion that much more noteworthy when they do break through.

Here, his carnival stunt-bike rider Handsome Luke learns of the existence of a son, the product of a cheeky knee-trembler the last time the show came to this particular town. This stirs a previously-dormant sense of fatherly duty, leading him to quit his job, move in near to his new-found family and, for reasons best left unexplained, become a kick-ass bank robber.

The robbin' scenes are quite the contrast to the measured emotional stuff that's gone before, but it works. Then Bradley Cooper arrives, at which point the film takes a rather different direction. Reviews have been careful not to spoil this, but suffice to say Gosling is not quite the focal point of the movie that the trailers may suggest - physically, at any rate. Still, this does allow Cooper to continue his good work from Silver Linings Playbook, proving if it were still in doubt that he can do Proper Actor and multiplex cheeseball equally well.

Definitely much-discussed has been deliberate Greek tragedy nature of the plot, which doesn't sit easily with the indiefied realism for many. Some later moment are explicit echoes of earlier scenes, and various motifs of events repeating themselves and mistakes not being learnt begin to loom large.

I'm not sure the film completely hangs together when all is said and done, but it's certainly another promising step from only a second-time director, who shows here he can handle shifts in tone and keep things interesting, at least until the final reel. The Pines they are a-ranging, or something.