THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ‘IRON MAN 3’. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE FILM AND DO NOT WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE SPOILERS I WILL BE DISCUSSING, STOP READING THIS POST NOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
With the release of Marvel’s ‘Iron Man 3’, there has been one part of the film that has attracted some controversy amongst comic book fans, and this is a key twist that happens around the middle of the film that revolves around one of the main characters; none other than the ‘main villain’ himself, the Mandarin. As I stated in my review of the film, those who are fans of the character probably would not like the twist because it is a key change to who is perhaps Iron Man’s most famous (and popular) enemy. It is certainly a bold move but the big question is whether or not it actually works in the movie. Because ‘Iron Man 3’ is a film that is kind of hard to write a review for just because of this key spoiler, I couldn’t really talk about it much in my review. That is why I’m doing this post to expand on my original review. So, let’s start by detailing how this all plays out in the movie.
As the movie starts off, the Mandarin is exactly the man we think he is; the terrorist leader of the Ten Rings (the terrorist group that held Tony Stark hostage in the first ‘Iron Man’ movie) who has been attacking the U.S. by committing a series of bombings all over the country. After Tony Stark issues a threat to the Mandarin that is televised, the Mandarin responds by blowing up Tony’s house. While Tony does survive the attack, he is believed to be dead. Later, Tony heads to the Mandarin’s headquarters located in Miami, Florida to confront him. This is where the major twist happens. It is revealed that the Mandarin is actually… a British actor.
Yes, the guy who we thought was the Mandarin is actually just this unaware drunken British actor who has been posing as the Mandarin, who in reality is just a fictional character created by scientist Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who is actually the main villain of the movie. On one hand, it is a pretty unique (and in many respects, gutsy) twist and I have to give director/writer Shane Black and co-writer Drew Pearce credit for going through with it. But of course, this is not the Mandarin that many comic book fans know. He’s not a genius scientist who is a master of martial arts who wears ten powerful rings crafted from alien technology. Instead, he’s just… this random guy… that’s it. This is probably the biggest character change in a comic book movie since Galactus became a cloud in ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’ (but the less said about that, the better).
In order to give my thoughts on this whole twist, let me explain my reactions as I watched it happen in the theater. At first, I couldn’t believe it and I was this close to saying that it was a cop out. But then after a while, I realized that, in regards to the story, this actually works very well. While this does mean that the man we thought was the main villain really wasn’t ‘The Mandarin’ after all, the main reason why it works great in this film is because while this ‘Mandarin’ is making headlines, Aldrich Killian is the real mastermind behind the terrorist attacks against the U.S. But at the end of the film, Killian proclaims that ‘he is the Mandarin’, meaning that he is the Cinematic Universe’s interpretation of the Mandarin. I can see where they’re going with that, but the way I see it, The Mandarin was just a fictional character in this Universe and it’s just a persona for Killian.
But now let’s talk about the performances of the two ‘Mandarins’. As the actual main villain, Guy Pearce does an excellent job as Aldrich Killian. I liked the set-up for his character (which begins when Tony Stark avoids meeting with him during New Year’s Eve in 1999, which soon leads to his actions later on in the film) and he’s a great match for Tony in terms of brains. As I mentioned in my review, I noted that Ben Kingsley handled the character changes to ‘The Mandarin’ very well. What I mean by that is that when he’s supposed to be the menacing Mandarin, he’s great. When’s he supposed to be the weird and drunken British actor who’s only playing the Mandarin, he’s also great. So while, in the end, there was only one true ‘Mandarin’, we had two great performances from the two men that carried the persona.
Obviously, this big change to the Mandarin has split comic book fans. If you’re one of those people who are against this change to the Mandarin, I understand why. This is certainly up there amongst the biggest changes ever done to a comic book character, especially when that character is the main villain. But as a non-comic book reader, I’m okay with it simply because it did work well in the film. If this film wasn’t well-written (which for the record, it is), then this twist would not have worked out in the end. This isn’t the Mandarin we were expecting, but it is a unique spin on the character; no doubt about that.
No comments:
Post a Comment