Escape to the Movies: Iron Man 3

[Calibanbutcher]

I saw the movie two days ago, and I have to say:
Meh.
It was alright as far as I am concerned, but it didn't really impress me all that much. Robert Downey Jr. was good, Gwyneth Paltrow was alright, Guy Pearce was fun (though I liked him better in Lockout) and Ben Kingsley stole every scene he was in.
If superheroes are your thing this movie is for you.
If you just want a fun action-romp, this movie is a good choice.
If you want anything more than that, you would be better of with another movie.

Why?

Spoiler: Spoilerific spoiling spoilers

Spoiler: seriously, this is going to spoil some of Iron Man 3's story, so turn back now if you intend to go see it any time soon

Ok, let's start:
First of: The "big shocking twisty twist of twisting proportions that will get people mad": As far as I can tell, Bob was referring to the Mandarin not being the one in charge but a mere puppet strung up by the "real mastermind".
SO basically the very same twist "The Dark Knight Rises" did. Only this time you see it coming from a mile away.
Heck, from ten miles away, blaring obnoxious music to announce it's arrival.

Was it shocking?

I saw this coming from a mile away, so it wasn't a shocking twist. Imho the last Batman executed the very same twist much better.

Was I OUTRAGED?

Nope. It seemed pretty clear that the Mandarin was not supposed to be the main antagonist, so there was no outrage.

Was I dissapointed?

A little. I know very little about comic books, but I know that the "real" mandarin uses magic, and to me "magic" would have been a much nicer addition to the movie than "sciencey-stuff so soft you can spread it on a croissant"-explanation we get for how and why stuff happens.

Second:
The action sequences: I really didn't like most of the action sequences. It seemed to me that they tried very hard to do some Avengers-style action sequence, but as far as I am concerned, they failed. Sure, there were lots of explosions and lots of stuff going on on the screen, but ultimately none of it was even close to being exciting or suspenseful.
As far as I am concerned, the best word to describe most of the final action sequence would be "bland".
And I was always acutely aware that most everything shown on screen was CGI.
I also disliked how they ended the main villain, having mutant-Pepper save Tony Stark from mutant-Guy-Pearce was not something I wanted in my IRON MAN movie.
If I had wanted to watch two lava-mutants duke it out, I would have gone seek a movie called "ULTIMATE-EXTREME-lava-mutant-cage-match-XX-2000".
But I didn't. I wanted to watch an Iron Man movie, and I fully expected to get to see Iron Man kick some serious ass and spout cool one-liners whilst doing so.
What did I get?
Iron Man getting dominated time and time again, having his suit destroyed like it ain't no thing and him running away.

And in the end, Mutant-Pepper has to save the day, killing the bad guy with an explosion.

Right after Iron Man blew the guy up, which miraculously failed to kill him.

That was not a satisfactory way to kill the guy.

Iron Man's last one liner? "I got nothing".
Now that's just adding insult to injury.


Third:
Ending Iron Man's story:
Wasn't it established in the first movie that they couldn't operate on Tony Starks heart because he wouldn't survive the procedure or something along those lines?
Well this movie said FUCK YOU to that and had him undergo surgery to apparently remove all the shrapnel etc.
Makes you wonder why he didn't just do that right the fuck after getting back to America.
Hell, if that was possible, why wasn't he all like:
"It's good to be back in the good ol' US of A. Now, someone get me a burger. And then I am gonna have me some real american open-fucking-heart surgery." in the first movie?
Did he just forget about his chest full of metal shards?
Was he too busy boning supermodels to schedule an appointment?
Was the night-light built in his damn chest just too convenient?

Fourth:
The "Iron Man-Prototype-suit failing" bit got old way too fast. As in:
It felt old the first time they used it and from then on out it continued to get worse and worse.

Fifth: The villain sucked. His motivation sucked and his plan sucked. However, Guy Pearce made such a great job potraying the guy that I still found him very enjoyable.

 

[Blunderboy]

I liked the film. A lot. Then again, I love both Iron Man and RDJ as a whole.
What amazed me most of all thought, is that after seven years of Marvel films, people were still leaving before the end credits.

 

[Flatfrog]

I bet Chipman is over hyping....

Not in my opinion. Easily the best of the Marvel movies so far, better than Avengers even. Good story, good characters, good action, good dialogue, good spectacle, it just works. I wasn't a big fan of either of the first two Iron Man movies, but this one is definitely worth a watch. And the twist, while not exactly original, is beautifully done.

 

[tautologico]

Iron Man 3 is, at least, a big improvement over the dreadful second film, so for this alone it's worth watching. But I thought it was, in fact, the best in the trilogy, and one of the best individual Marvel movies, no doubt. Devin Faraci's review at Badass Digest is full of spoilers but he discusses the movie at length, in a positive light. Film Critic Hulk also published some analysis of IM3 as a Shane Black movie, and I agree with most of their points.

 

[Henkie36]

All I can say is that I really hated that twist, and I expected Bob to feel the same way about it. It is definetley a risk and not something you'll see coming, so job well done for creating a twist. But the way I see it, it is only a small step above making it all play out in a dream sequence. So my initial reaction was more in the lines of ''They didn't. They honestly didn't. Holy-crap-you-have-got-to-be-shitting-me they just did. Damn.'' That said, I still think it was better then Iron Man 2, even though not as good as the first one or The Avengers. They get very creative with the suits and I agree with Bob that finally Pepper Potts gets fleshed out a little more, making herself actually useful through her on-screen actions.

 

[Vrach]

Yeah, saw it last night, was pretty awesome. The plot twist was fantastic as well, hope no one spoils it around here, it's just such a lovely moment in the theatre, everyone was literally laughing at the premiere.

As for the "stay after the credits", I wish you told that to the guy who was handling the projector. While about 25-30% of the theatre stayed seated after the credits, the guy at the projector apparently didn't get the memo, didn't watch/play a single Marvel movie so far, had no idea what he was playing, no eyes to see the amount of audience waiting and no respect for the movie to let the credits play through. So RIGHT BEFORE the ending scene... the moron cut the video. The sound was still there, so while we started to doubt a little if there would be a scene (the movie really feels like an Iron Man finish), we heard the sound playing the scene. Then, after the audience started shouting, the guy turned the video back on, then backed up... to the final scene before the credits. So after waiting some half hour, the ending scene received a really lukewarm reception, which, while it's not as awesome as the previous movies are, it doesn't quite deserve.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

I bet Chipman is over hyping....

I've seen it, and it was awesome.

A bit disappointing he didn't talk about the twist, the amount of times we get spoiled in other countries because we get a movie a month or two after the states sometimes is annoying. But I understand why he chose not to, and I agree that it was an awesome part of the film.

i enjoyed it. was it perfect, no. was it fun, hell yes. the twist was fun, the Marvel CU doesnt stick too close to the books so get over it. n c'mon, canon gets messed with plenty anyway.

still not sure why the UK gets to see it first, but hey, i enjoyed it

I like that they mix things up in these films, if I want to see the story exactly as the comics are written, I'd read my comics. This way I get a new story with characters I love in it.

I'm not sure why the US gets it after, but like I said in my earlier post, most other countries get movies and games etc later then them, was kinda nice to see something big be our turn to see first. It took Wreck it Ralph two extra months to make it to NZ, not as big a movie as Iron Man 3, but one of the newer examples. Once the US has something released, it gets way harder to avoid spoilers of any kind on most websites and they pop up in the most unexpected of places sometimes.

 

[RJ 17]

This Sunday is my birthday and that's when I'm heading out to see it with some friends. I'm glad Bob gave it his seal of approval as his tastes are generally in line with my own.

Still, I don't know that I've seen a Marvel movie that has disappointed me....except Spiderman 3...and I haven't seen any of The Hulks so they don't count.

 

[Razhem]

Saw it and loved it. The twist was awesome and frankly, the more "faithful" approach would have been lame as hell as far as I'm concerned, though I will admit I don't have much respect for the Iron Man mythos of old. Was fun all the way through but didn't feel I had to turn off my brain to enjoy it. It did have a bit of lowbrow humour, but nothing anywhere close to being jarring and there was some audience pandering by adding a child actor into the mix, but frankly, I liked those scenes and the kid never felt annoying to me which is something I consider worth mentioning. So yeah, loved it and prefer it over the other 2 Iron Man films, this is the first time I felt the villain was actually dangerous, not like in 1 which had a stupidly convoluted plan and a pretty weak climax and 2 which was cool, but really low key. The enemy not being another guy in a suit really helped me there.

 

[leviadragon99]

Mm, I actually enjoyed the twist and found it clever myself, and I had a sneaking suspicion Bob would feel the same. :XD:

 

[DalekJaas]

Saw it ages ago in Aus and did not enjoy it at all, nothing but cheesy one liners. It tried so hard to be funny and I thought the 'Extremis' story was a boring book and it turned out to be an equally stupid movie. It was like Iron Man vs Xmen. When Killian breathed fire I almost walked out and left the cinema, he did it once so they could set up another joke.
And the after the credits scene is not worth watching, if you dont really care dont wait around for it.

 

[Lethos]

I found it enjoyable enough. I wasn't really expecting a clever storyline after the first two films, but I was surprised when the twist happened. It's a good enough sci-fi action film to keep me happy.

Bob I gotta say though, for someone who didn't like the Dark Knight Rises, you sure seem to compare a lot of films to it.

 

[shrekfan246]

This Sunday is my birthday and that's when I'm heading out to see it with some friends. I'm glad Bob gave it his seal of approval as his tastes are generally in line with my own.

Still, I don't know that I've seen a Marvel movie that has disappointed me....except Spiderman 3...and I haven't seen any of The Hulks so they don't count.

Spider-Man movie rights are owned by Sony, not Marvel.

OT: Eh. Saying it's second only to Captain America does nothing to hype it in my eyes, since all I remember of Captain America are some loud explosions. Also, I didn't care enough to see the second Iron Man, so the point of watching this one is pretty lost on me...

I do think it's a bit funny that Bob glosses over things he would've harped on about had the film not been Marvel, though.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Got to admit, surprised Bob liked the twist, given he normally gets quite ranty over things like that

 

[LordMonty]

Bravo I whole heartedly agree, took a moment to set in after it finished but yes is the best Ironman film and you pretty much said what i was thinking(but without spoilers)

 

[Nomanslander]

Captain America was not a good movie.

Same feelings here.

The first half was promising when it came to the origins story, decent at best. But the second and third act just felt totally lackluster as CA began duking it out with the Red Skull. Watchable on a boring Sunday afternoon, but nothing more than that.

 

[CheckD3]

I personally enjoyed it. The plot focused on Tony, but set up the other characters nicely. It had humor, drama, some good action, and personally I thought it was a great movie. I still prefer the original, though that's me, and I also didn't HATE the 2nd one, just thought it wasn't as good as the first.

It's hard to make a movie like this and release it a year after Avengers. The first movie had no mark and got the excitement for Avengers up, now we're swimming in the wake of that movie and the waves are still hitting these sequels, and will, no matter how hard we try to avoid them.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I bet Chipman is over hyping....

He does for pretty much all of these movies. I think the only super hero movie he didn't really drool over was TDKR (there's probably others but considering how often he bashes it -and for some reason the whole series now- is why it came to mind).

Edit: I just need to say, his by far most over-hyped film is Captain America. For whatever reason, he loves it. I personally thought it was the weakest of all the Avenger movies. The villain was incredibly bad and that's probably its biggest problem but it had plenty of others.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Just got back from seeing it. It was pretty damn good. I understand why they did what they did with the twist too.

CAPTCHA: The Big Apple

Well, there goes Tony on another PTSD episode.....