1. Don't Overdo Your Climax
There's something slightly strange about the overall structure of
Iron Man 3, often with regards to the placement of its set-pieces. There isn't an overabundance of set-pieces in the film generally, which is fine, because it never feels overwhelmed by "too much action" - that is, until the end, when a couple of huge set-pieces follow on from one another without much of a break, the second of which goes on for
far too long. I'm not sure it was written that way on paper, but it certainly feels stretched to its limits, perhaps at the studio's request. I'm referring to the set-piece with the plane and the falling passengers (excellent, in my opinion), followed by the overlong shipyard battle, which appears to exist to only ever go on and on and on. This thing could have been cut in half and still had exactly the same impact. We have the bad guy, Killian, constantly coming back to life like an enemy from a
Resident Evil game - and for what reason? One "final battle" would have done nicely. Which is to say, "less is more." If you're writing a climax, don't feel pressured to top everything that came before it. Strangely, Black seems to have gone against his own advice when it comes to the ending battle of
Iron Man 3:
"An action film can have too much action; picture an equaliser on a stereo, with all the knobs pegged at 10. It becomes a cacophony and is, ultimately, quite boring..."
No kidding, Shane. But his advice here is good advice that you should keep in mind when you're writing action. Change it up and don't be afraid to pitch your action sequences at different levels: the next explosion doesn't always have to be bigger than the last explosion. It also helps to know when to say when. If you find you've written a 10 page action scene at the end of your movie, see if you can achieve the same effect but cutting it down by half the size. Sometimes that's impossible, and fair enough if you can't make it work, but people will always remember a more honed and far slicker dose of action than a huge, muddled climax that goes on forever.
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