Massive spoilers of Iron Man 3 to follow. Seriously, don't read this if you haven't seen the movie yet.
In the Marvel Comics universe, the Mandarin is Iron Man's greatest villain — an Asian scientist and fighter who gains superpowers courtesy of ten alien rings constructed using technology far more advanced that even Tony Stark has to offer. He's not a top-tier big bad by any means, but he's someone we all assumed Marvel would be building toward using once they started porting Iron Man stories to the big-screen. The original Iron Man movie even hints at him, as the terrorist group that kidnaps Tony in Afghanistan is labeled "The Ten Rings" and their leader, Raza, wears an oversized colored ring that many guessed might be one of the Mandarin's ten.
So using the Mandarin as Tony's biggest nemesis to date in the recently released Iron Man 3 isn't exactly a surprise. What is shocking though is HOW they use them. In the film's early goings, the Mandarin, played by Ben Kingsley, is a face on a TV screen. Or more precisely, everyone's TV screen. His group is hacking into American broadcasts so he can provide terrifying updates on the war against America he's been carrying out — a series of deadly explosions where no bomb fragments are found. He also promises future attacks, including making specific threats toward the President of the United States (William Sadler, sadly not doing naked tai-chi here). With his odd, menacing voice and terrorist-gangsta fashion sense, it seems clear that the Mandarin is one really bad dude. Up until the whole thing turns out to be a gigantic ruse, that is.
Two-thirds of the way through the movie, it's revealed that Ben Kingsley isn't playing the Mandarin at all, but rather a down-on-his-luck British actor named Trevor Slattery who's merely pretending to be a fake madman at the service of Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian, a ruthless scientist and military contractor bent on amassing wealth and political power by playing both sides of the terrorist game. Hey, a job's a job, and this one is scoring Trevor money and girls. When Tony first tracks the Mandarin down, Trevor is emerging from his bathroom disheveled and likely drunk. His voice now quivery and apologetic, he sputters and tells Tony everything he wants to know. In essence, Marvel and Iron Man 3 writer/director Shane Black took the biggest villain in the Iron Man comic universe and turned him into a punchline.
But here's the thing: It's a really, really good joke. And you know what? It's probably the perfect joke to make right now, considering where we are in the current life-cycle of superhero movies. When the trailers for Iron Man 3 were released, many were comparing the bizarre nature of Kingsley's line readings to Heath Ledger's take on the Joker in The Dark Knight. The Mandarin seemed to be the latest in the increasingly lengthy line of super-villains where an acclaimed actor dives in and attacks the role with gravitas and gusto. He was expected to be the natural evolution of what began with Nicholson and was carried forward by McKellen and Molina and so on. But Black must have figured, why try to one-up Ledger and the rest when you can spin the whole concept of the modern-day comic-book-film super-villain on its head? And what better time to put that kind of twist on things than in the FOURTH film featuring Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man? This far into the series, it's usually better to subvert expectations rather than just fall in line with them. In fact, you could almost read Kingsley's portrayal as Trevor/the Mandarin as a sly, meta take on the notion of heavyweight actors jumping into these comic-book roles and chewing through the scenery of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters.
it's an incredibly ballsy move on Marvel's part, one that's sure to piss off hardcore comic nerds who wanted to see their version of the Mandarin on the big screen, not a bumbling Ben Kingsley. Although the movie does hedge a bit at the end by having Killian declare to Tony that he's the real Mandarin. I don't think it's supposed to be taken literally, a la Liam Neeson revealing himself to be the actual Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins. In the context of the movie, I think it's just Killian illustrating that he's the guy Tony should be truly afraid of. But I also think it's meant to give Marvel an out, a way to say, "Here, if you guys really need the big-screen version of the Mandarin to be a sneering, evil super-villain, then just assume it was Guy Pearce all along. After all, he was the one responsible for all the destruction."
But come on. Killian in no way resembles the Mandarin as he exists in the comic books. That character is now destined to exist only in print, a fact that proves Marvel is willing to take chances and bend a few rules as they continue to expand their carefully constructed movie-verse. In the long run, the whole enterprise will be better for it.
