Iron Man 3 Blu Ray Review

Article Image

Iron Man 3 is the best of the Iron Man films. If you disagree, re-watch them again. Iron Man is inconsistently paced and toned, sometimes it's deathly serious and beyond dull, whereas sometimes it's light and fun and engaging, but it never finds the right balance, and Jeff Bridges? No, didn't work. 2? Yeah, let's not go there. Iron Man 3 was written before shooting, and was written by two men who know what makes them laugh, what makes them engaged and what they want to see cinema do. Shane Black and Drew Pearce find a film that's altogether different to any superhero film yet by avoiding the elephant in the iron man suit that is sequelitus. They don't 'go bigger', they only 'go darker' for a spell, before giving the stage to Robert Downey Jr. the man, not the man in the iron mask, to lighten up everything, joke, smile, dance if he has to. And the film works because we love Tony Stark as a cynical yet oddly sweet and compelling eccentric, whose friends and lover finally get some well written scenes and plots this time around. Who knew that Pepper Potts could be as enjoyable to watch as she detects the mysteries of Extremis? Or Rhodey's trip to Pakistan to hunt The Mandarin? Factor in newcomers Sir Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce and Rebecca Hall, and you've got a cracking film full of great characters, funny moments, and super-hero fun that matches punch for punch with any buddy cop film for the last decade.

The blu ray release offers a lot of gorgeous HD-ness for eyes and ears, with the picture looking more than stellar. Shane Black's darker aesthetic at times doesn't drop detail, whilst the only negative imagery in the film involve The Mandarin's TV broadcasts, shot in a cheap, digital manner, it's made to look as low grade as possible, and thus looks perfect, like the rest of the film. The 3D blu ray, alas, doesn't sail quite as high, much like the theatrical presentation, what we get is a fair amount of ghosting, with a few moments of screen protrusion and depth,  but mostly it falls flat. The film is to be seen 2D, and the 3D option just rubs salt into the eyes of tech fans.

The 7.1 sound mix on the blu ray is loud and proud, but never attacks the dialogue or makes anything incoherent. A Shane Black film requires clean dialogue throughout, and despite some mumbled lines here and there, it's almost all clear and concise, whilst the score is gorgeous, the opening song of Eiffel 65's Blue (Da Ba Dee) has bass the likes you've never heard before, and the sub woofer gets a lot of attention, especially in act three. Nice and punchy, a great sound mix, perfect stuff for home cinemas.

And then we come to the extras. The Marvel One-Shot this time is Agent Carter, now looking to be a TV show around Captain America's love interest, here Hayley Atwell is given a bunch of guys to fight with her brains at the CIA, including an enjoyable Bradley Whitford, and with her fists as she hunts down a mysterious item. It's a 15 minute short that has high production values, and yet it leaves a lot to be desired with a mediocre script that never has the wit or spark of Marvel's feature outings. The credits are cool though.

A few deleted scenes and some improvised stuff with Adam Pally's superfan and Don Cheadle making Sir Ben Kingsley try different accents are lots of fun, whilst more from Joan Rivers and Bill Maher on Iron Patriot's redesign are quite tedious. The making-of's are surprisingly detailed given how short they are, mainly the one focusing on the Air Force One sequence, one of the year's best action scenes, whilst a 2 minute look at Thor 2 just makes our mouths salivate. All of this is wrapped up with a mediocre gag reel that feels more like a series of smiles than anything really gaggy, and that's a shame given the wealth of talent on set.

Finally, though, is the commentary track with Drew Pearce and Shane Black. They love each-other so much that just hearing them chat about things, not on-screen action but the film as a whole and the production, is fascinating, and their dry wit means the track is full of cracking jokes and silly improvs that go to weird places. Enjoyable and then some.

The Iron Man 3 blu ray is something you will own, anyone who likes good films, Marvel films, action films, genre pictures will own it, and Disney have shoved in some great features onto a disk with a fun film, mastered to look and sound as good as you could imagine. The 3D transfer is middling at best, but the 2D release is more than good enough to purchase.

Read more about

Marvel
review
Joss Whedon
Guy Pearce