By Peter Killip.
Avengers Assemble (I shudder that I have to call it that) has a LOT to answer for it’d seem. Iron Man was decent enough, let down by an “Iron Man vs BLOODY HUGE Iron Man” type climax but a solid outing nonetheless, the sequel was turd, no two ways about it. Proper turd. Thor and Captain America had their guilty pleasure moments and then Joss Whedon bellied up to the bar with his take on The Avengers. Joss, having a spot of bad luck at the time (Firefly cancellation still fresh in everybody’s minds and his take on Wonder Woman in a feature film not even over the first hurdle.) wasn’t exactly the safest bet for taking on Marvel’s ultimate (no pun intended) summer Blockbuster, his vision being maybe a little too light in contrast to D.C comics’ Christopher “I’ll wear a coat, it’ll probably rain” Nolan universe. They both did fairly…..scratch that, they both smashed it the fuck in and shown there was room for the light as well as the dark and gritty takes on familiar fables, the only question seemingly being: “But where next?” ENTER: Shane Black.
Once again, like Joss, a writer/director of some repute but recently had his hand stained by the shit end of the stick (having been once paid 1 million dollars for his writing “The Last Action Hero”, have you seen it recently? I’d have blacklisted him myself….) by hollywood and faced something of an uphill struggle to fit his unique style into a blockbuster effectively. His secret weapon though, happens to have had previous experience with him and also happens to play the title role. Downey jnr’s Stark, shortly after kicking in much alien head through a giant wormhole or some such nonsense at the tail end of “A.A”, he’s understandably having a time wrapping his head around the whole Gods/aliens/why Hasslehoff was replaced with L Jackson etc and aint getting much kip through anxiety issues and having to spend the rest of his life with someone called Pepper Potts and that. Spending more and more time tinkering and upgrading his suits, he’s becoming more and more dependant on them, his Iron Man persona being more comfortable than his Stark one (paging freud as we speak).
This is the cue for The Mandarin to turn up and fuck his shit up. Anybody who has seen the teasers/trailers/tv spots etc will already have realistically pieced this much together but I’m wary of giving even this much away. So back to Black, given his style, it has some of the finer dialogue to be spat on the big screen and in Downey, one of the finest spitters, showing that their pairing in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was no fluke. Performance wise, everybody has their moment in the sun, even Don Cheadle has some more screen time and Guy Pearce goes some way to make amends for his extended “cameo” in Prometheus. Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin is…….you’re in for a treat.
Not since “Thunderbirds: The Movie” have I been this awe struck by a performance of his. As is usually the case in most of the Marvel universe movies, stick around for the post credit stinger, good stuff awaits. Unlike most of the Marvel universe movies however, this feels very much like it’s own film and not a stepping stone, it feels fully prepped, polished and like Whedon after The Avengers, it feels like Black is ready to soar again.
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