There's yet more Shane Black yuletide fun up next, as the writer-cum-director joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe and reunites with his Kiss Kiss... star Robert Downey Jr with 2012's mega-budget blowout Iron Man 3. Naturally, Black can't resist making things all Christmassy so, instead of spending his holiday season wrapping presents and hanging with his super-powered friends, Tony Stark is taking on the double whammy of heinous terrorist The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) and diabolical mastermind Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce). While your Christmas might be a bit stressful because you've got to figure out how to cook dinner for a dozen boozy relatives, Tony has to deal with rescuing the President (William Sadler) and saving the world from a techno-organic virus that turns people into living bombs. No biggie.
Like many great Christmas tales this one’s about redemption, about going through a whole bunch of difficult stuff to become a better person. Killian is a guy Tony wronged years ago, carrying a major grudge throughout his successful career seeing him become director of shady tech giant A.I.M. He strikes just as Tony is wrestling personal demons and suffering paralysing anxiety attacks following the crazy cosmic events of Avengers Assemble.
It's clever, as the plot kind of reads like Iron Man's own 'Christmas Carol' with the ghosts of his past visiting him in the form of Killian and foxy ex-flame Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) who shakes things up quite enjoyably with Stark's current beau Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). I also don't realise at first but someone Tony callously brushes off in a revealing flashback turns out to be Ho Yinsen (Shaun Toub), the guy who helped him create his fangled armour back in Iron Man part one. This surely makes him Stark's 'Jacob Marley' figure, the one who tries to make him realise that his profitable arms manufacturing career is bad for the world and his soul. Greedy, arrogant Killian can totally be read as a spectre of Tony's potential future, a warning about the prick he could become if he doesn't slow down and consider what to do with his genius and fortune. See? Total Christmas film.
Black's script takes the interesting route of completely tearing down Tony's entire world, literally blowing everything up, leaving him armour-less, defenceless and isolated in the snowy wilderness. He has to go back to basics and do his damnedest to build himself back bigger and stronger. Classic movie stuff.
The film is full of the expected glossy superhero thrills and spills too. There are plenty of expensive-looking action set-pieces and a smart sequence where Tony has to quickly 'MacGuyver' up some gadgets and weapons out of stuff from a hardware shop. I love that he creates some homemade hand grenades out of Christmas baubles - John McClane never thought to do that.
There's plenty of that Black humour and wit too, with Kingsley's goofy turn as "The Mandarin" threatening to steal the show for deliciously surprising reasons. The movie is refreshing as well in that it's an M.C.U. movie that doesn't labour to set uploads of other films and you don't need to have seen about twenty other films to follow what's going on. What we're left with is a satisfying, festive tale of a fractured superhero experiencing a heartwarming epiphany as well as saving the day. God bless us, everyone. And God bless you Shane Black, you sly old dog.
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