Iron Man 3 (2013)

Title: Iron Man 3 (2013)

Director: Shane Black

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Jon Favreau, William Sadler, Miguel Ferrer

Review:

Iron Man 3 is exactly what it’s supposed to be when you take in consideration that it’s directed by Shane Black. But who the hell is Shane Black you might ask? Well, most movie buffs will know that he’s the mastermind behind the scripts for such classics as Lethal Weapon (1987), The Last Boyscout (1991), The Monster Squad (1987), Last Action Hero (1996) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996). Mind you, I said he’s the mastermind behind the scripts for these movies, not the direction, because that’s what Shane Black’s been doing for a large part of his career, writing awesome movies. By the way, during the 90’s, Mr. Black became Hollywood’s highest paid screenwriter! For The Last Boy Scout he got paid a cool 1.75 million dollars, the highest any screenwriter had gotten paid at the time. Then for The Long Kiss Good Night he got paid four freaking million dollars! And it was a box office failure! After that huge failure, Shane Black retracted from writing anything. Reportedly he wanted to get away from associating himself with big budget movies.  He then resurfaced into the limelight by writing and directing the fast paced action comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) which starred Robert Downey Jr, so it makes all the sense in the world seeing them working together again for this third Iron Man film. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was Shane Black’s first directing gig, and it was a successful one. Now he says that directing is what really gets his panties up in a bunch, he loves it. So, here comes Iron Man 3, his second shot at directing a film, and his biggest project to date, how did it go?

Iron Man 3 picks up right where The Avengers (2012) left off, with Tony Stark dealing with the whole aftermath of saving New York from an alien invasion and traveling through wormholes and all that. Apparently, Mr. Stark cannot deal with the fact that he saved millions of lives and possibly the entire planet from an alien invasion. Wormholes, demi-gods and aliens give Stark sporadic anxiety attacks. The mere mention of anything related to The Avengers or wormholes will get him all panicky. At the same time, there’s a new villain on the horizon. One that wants to destroy America! Will Iron Man be psychologically stable enough to battle his own demons and stop The Mandarin and his minions at the same time?

Staying true to the kind of characters that Shane Black likes to write, this time around Stark is an unstable protagonist. If you’ve seen some of Blacks previous films, you’ll find that many of his stories have protagonists who are unstable psychologically, angry and on the edge. I mean, the best example I guess would be the first film he ever wrote; Lethal Weapon. On that one we meet Martin Riggs, a guy who’s a borderline psycho. A guy who is depressed because he lost his wife. Without her, his life is meaningless, he doesn’t care if he gets shot, or dies, or what. In fact, the guy is downright suicidal! Another example would be the main character in The Last Boy Scout; a private detective called Joe. His daughter hates him and his wife is being unfaithful to him with his best friend! It is sufficient to say he hates his life as well. Bruce Willis goes throughout the whole movie looking all pissed off.  And so when I see Tony Stark having nightmares and getting anxiety attacks, it makes all the sense in the world because Shane Black loves writing characters that are troubled and confounded that way. His characters are always dealing with some terrible issue in their lives that doesn’t allow them to be happy. This is the kind of Tony Stark you’ll be seeing in Iron Man 3. How blue is Tony Stark in this movie? Well, to give you an idea, the film starts out with the one hit wonder by Eifel 65 called “Blue (Da-Ba-Dee)”; that’s how blue!  

This doesn’t mean that Iron Man 3 is all gloom and doom, because let’s face it, this is Disney, and they are not about selling gloom and doom. So what we have here is a light version of a dark and gloomy guy, I know that sounds like a contradiction, but it isn’t. This new Iron Man is a classic Shane Black troubled protagonist, but he’s just not about to blow his brain out. Tony Stark, though unhinged and delicate psychologically, still retains his wits and good humor about him, as if trying to hide all these bad things going on in his head. One of the elements I enjoyed the most about this Iron Man is how it strips the character down completely. The film starts out by having Tony Stark saying in a voice over, “you know who I am” this immediately lets us know what the main theme of the film will be. The dissection of what makes Iron Man; Iron Man. Is it his suit? Is it Tony Stark? Or is it a combination of both? There are many visual indications that what the film is trying to tell us is that it’s the man that makes the suit, and not the other way around. There’s this idea behind the film that without Tony Stark, these suits would just be clunky, clumsy things. There is an interesting duality to this character: the suit represents technology and Tony Stark represents humanity and there’s this clash between the two. They are trying to co-exist with each other, but it’s not a perfect match. Well, at least not in this film. So this is why during this film you will see Tony Stark relying less and less on his suit and more and more on his cunning. This is probably the reason why throughout the whole film, Tony is jumping in and out of the suit.  

Black established a motif, a recurrent thematic element in the film and it’s Stark, the human vs. the Iron Man armor. Though the suits are helpful in many ways, on this film they are also shown to be imperfect, failing, unreliable, a hindrance to Stark; some of the funniest moments come from this. Shane Black decided to portray the suit like something similar to a smart phone, you have to charge it if you want to use it, and sometimes when you need it the most, it’s not charged! Or the battery dies. So be ready to see one of these movies that turns its main character around. It turns its once indestructible protagonist into someone vulnerable, confused and disrupt. They used the same formula that was used for Skyfall (2012), in that film the filmmakers took James Bond and made him a vulnerable mess. In Iron Man 3 they  took the character, who is usually indestructible and stripped him of all his gadgets and powers and left him with the bare essentials, no additives, no preservatives, just pure unadulterated Tony Stark. This might prove to be a bit shocking to those who expect to get their usual indestructible version of Iron Man. In fact, you’ll see more of Tony Stark then you will of Iron Man himself. Sometimes Stark will only use parts of the suit instead of the entire suit. Or sometimes he’ll be working the suit from afar, from remote control. Point is, Mr. Black purposely drew a separating line between Tony Stark and his armor.

But is the movie any fun? I say hell yea it is. Shane Black might want to show us a darker, more disrupt version of Tony Stark, but he still has to deliver the goods on the action and “wowzers!”  department. So does Iron Man 3 deliver on the action? I say the film delivers a fine balancing act between being character driven, and exploring Stark on a deeper level while also delivering the show stopping action. Case in point: the scene where they blow up Starks mansion is a real grabber. So is the one that takes place in and out of Air Force One, then there's the climactic scene that takes place on an oil rig. We get The Mandarin as the films major villain, and though he might not be what comic book fans might expect, I thought he was still cool. I would have named him something else other than The Mandarin, because he isn’t The Mandarin from the comics. Its obvious Black was playing with our expectations of the character. I don’t know why he chose to deviate so radically from what the character is supposed to be, but for some reason he avoided The Mandarin’s oriental origins and completely eschewed the ten alien power rings that he’s supposed to wear on each finger.  They didn’t even include his superhuman martial arts abilities, though he does fight good. The only thing that’s left from the comic book version of the character is that he can slice Iron Man’s suit with his bare hands; so everything in this movie is pretty much in order, save for the way they decided to portray The Mandarin. But hell, if you don't follow the comics, never mind. Then he's just a cool super villain. 

In my opinion, Iron Man 3 is the best written of the three films. It does a good balancing act between exploring what constitutes Iron Man and heavy doses of awesome action. There’s a couple of new additions as well, for example, they went the way of RoboCop 3 (1993) and added a homeless kid into the story. The kid becomes Iron Man’s sidekick for a spell; which I thought was a good idea; it gives all the twelve year olds out there a character to identify with, and at the same time, it gave Tony Stark the chance of becoming a father figure. There’s more interesting developments and surprises, but I don't want to spoil them for you. Just make sure you stick till after the credits for a little extra scene/joke that was pretty funny. The film might disappoint some hardcore Mandarin fans, maybe the film will disappoint those who want to see Tony Stark inside of the armor for 95% of the film, but for those who want to get to know what makes Iron Man tick, for those who get more of a kick from watching Robert Downey Jr. doing his thing, well, then you’re gonna love this Iron Man flick.

Rating:  4 ½ out of 5   

  

The Avengers (2012)

Title: The Avengers (2012)

Director: Joss Whedon

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Chris Hemsworth

Review:

The Avengers is visual crack, seriously, your eyes will become instantly addicted to the silver screen. This movies so good, you wont want to blink! It’s been a while since I’ve been honestly and wholeheartedly floored by a film, so kudos to Joss Whedon for making a film that reminds me why I love going to the movies. I want to be blown away, I want to be wowed, I want to laugh. And I got all these things with The Avengers; a gigantic, bombastic, non stop thrill ride of a movie!  A love letter to super hero comics! It’s been a while since I heard gasps in the movie theater, but it happened last night. People where gasping whenever any super hero would show up on screen. People were clapping after action sequences, they even clapped when the Marvel logo went up on screen…it was an event.

Sure other films based on comic books have been made; and a lot of them have been quite good. For example, so far I rank Sam Raimi’s Spider Man 2 (2004) as one of those films that really captured what super hero comic books are all about, and I hold that film in high regard, but The Avengers blew it away. The Avengers is officially my #1 super hero film of all time. Watching this film, I felt like I was in geek heaven, there’s this thrill you get when you see all of these super heroes together up on the screen!

The story for The Avengers is fairly simple. Loki, the demigod from Asgard wants revenge. If you remember correctly, in THOR (2011), Loki wanted to be king of Asgard, but Thor stopped him before he could achieve his goals, so now Loki wants not only revenge, he also wants to rule over earth. He wants humans kneeling at his feet! In order to do so he enlists the help of an alien race called ‘The Chitauri’. SHIELD is an organization in charge of national security, so seeing as how this is a potentially earth threatening situation, they decide that the best way to confront this is to organize a group of the most powerful super heroes on the planet. And so The Avengers are born. Will they be enough to go up against Loki and his alien army? 

A lot of what makes this film work so well is the fact that Joss Whedon directed it. Here’s a man who is king of the geeks. He understands very well the pleasures of reading a good super hero comic book. He knows what super hero fans want to see in an Avengers film, because he is one of them. He knows what fan boys consider cool, and he gives it to them. How perfect is Whedon for directing this film? Well, apart from his vast television experience (he created Buffy and Angel) and having directed the incredibly underrated sci-fi/western Serenity (2005), he's also written quite a few Marvel comics himself, including his popular Astonishing X-Men run. Many directors have tried to capture this magic of reading comic books, of seeing powerful beings kicking the hell out of each other, but only some achieve it well. For example, Sam Raimi and his first two Spider Man movies, Bryan Synger and his X-Men films, Chris Nolan with this Batman franchise…and now Joss Whedon can be added to the ranks, and dare I say it he is the one who has made, what I’m sure will be considered by many as one of the best superhero movies ever made. In my opinion, this Avengers film eclipses all other Marvel movies, you kind of feel like they are less somehow after watching The Avengers, which is simply put loaded with non stop coolness from opening to closing credits.

The success of this film show us one thing: a movie will work better with the appropriate director at the helm, get a guy who knows what his talking about, a guy who knows a thing or two about the characters and their backgrounds, about special effects, about getting an audience hooked. I’m sure all those years in television production taught Whedon all about what needs to be done to keep the audience happy, to get them hooked. This is a director whose been given a lot of money to bring this film to life (reportedly 220 million) so basically, Whedon, King of Geeks was given the keys to heaven. Marvel Disney did well in trusting this guy with The Avengers, no one else could have gotten this film this right.

Whedon directs! 

So what’s so good about this film? Well, let’s see, it brings SHIELD to life is what it does. For years, as a comic book fan, I’d been reading stories involving SHIELD and now finally I get to see it come to life; and in such a spectacular manner. I mean, SHIELD’S flying fortress, wow, what a sight! Which reminds me, the visual effects on this film are top notch, cutting edge, state of the line. They’ve done a fantastic job of bringing these gods to life. The action sequences where fantastic! What I really loved about them is that the action sequences are extended. Once they start, they don’t seem to stop! The levels of destruction on this one are gargantuan! Battle sequences go on and on, and on, showcasing one awesome moment after the next. It’s an onslaught to the senses, which is why you’ll probably want to see it again. After all, this is a Marvel comics film we’re talking about, and Marvel Comics have always been king of the cliffhangers! Most of their comic books end with a caption that reads: “come back next week for the thrilling conclusion” or a “to be continued”. This was a very successful technique, I know it kept me buying comics for years! They’ve just applied this age old formula to films. This one also has an ending that will make you want to come back for that sequel, so after the credits, wait a couple of minutes, comic book fans will salivate at what they see, I know I was left thinking of the possibilities for the inevitable sequel.

Captain America comes full circle with this film by becoming the leader of The Avengers

The heroes are the star of the show and they all get their moment to shine. I loved how Whedon wrote this film because none of the heroes feel left out. They are all equally important in the story, they are all useful, they all got a purpose. And this film really connects with all the others that came before it, which I thought was awesome. Characters reference events that happened in their own respective films, which is why I personally recommend seeing all the other ones that came before it before you see this one. But honestly, I don’t think you’ll get lost if you haven’t, the films story is a simple alien invasion flick. But speaking about the heroes, I believe this is the best depiction of these guys on any movie so far. Hulk really smashes! Captain American leads! Iron Man is a genius, an asshole and a hero all rolled up into one! Thor is truly the God of Thunder controlling lighting bolts through his hammer. By the way, has anyone noticed how many Oscar  nominees are on this film? 

The embodiment of hotness, Scarlett Johansson

On the negative side of things I will say that the whole alien invasion story line in which Loki opens dimensional portals in order to bring an army of alien beings to assist him in his conquering of the earth sounded and at times looked extremely similar to Michael Bay’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011). But don’t you worry about that because The Avengers is infinitely better than anything Bay has directed. Also, I wish Nick Fury had done a bit more in the film, it would have been cool to see Jackson kicking ass in some form or another in his own spectacular action sequence, but then again, he's not really a 'super' hero in the true sense of the word. Hey, at least he can shoot a bazooka! Okay, so my last words on The Avengers? It’s definitely worth the price of admission, so if I was you, I’d buy that ticket and take this ride! This is officially the first blockbuster of the summer! And it’s a good one, so what are you waiting for?  

Rating: 5 out of 5  

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Title: Iron Man 2 (2010)

Director: Jon Favreau

Writer: Justin Theroux

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell

Review:

The first Iron Man (2008) film was an incredible box office success. It was a hit for Marvel Comics Productions, a company that has been producing some of the best (and worst) superhero movies ever. Iron Man was one of their really good ones. Jon Favreau brought together an excellent cast and production team, the end result was pure superhero magic. Not to mention the film single handedly brought Robert Downey Jr. back into the spotlight, making one of the best comebacks in recent history. And of course, after such an incredible success, a sequel just had to be churned out. I mean the name of the game with commercial films such as this one is making money. Was Favreau able to catch lightning in a bottle again?

This time around, Iron Man has become something of a celebrity, everyone knows who he is, he has brought world peace to the planet and has essentially become something of a god on planet earth. Righteous and invincible. But what happens when ever one individual gets to powerful and too successful on his own? The Government wants a piece of him now! That’s right, government is salivating at getting their hands on Tony Starks Iron Man armor. They want to use it for military applications, while Tony Stark is interested in using it to keep world peace, and since no one can challenge the awesome power of the Iron Man suit, well then, Iron Man remains the protector of the planet. Or at least of the United States. But the question that comes into play with this movie is: Is Tony Stark the right man to wear this powerful armor?

Expectations for this movie are high for various reasons. It’s a sequel to a very successful film that many loved. The original made so many millions at the box office, that it is expected that for a sequel, Hollywood would treat its new cash cow with some respect and made sure they delivered a decent superhero film. So a huge budget and big stars is something to be expected with this sequel. In my opinion Hollywood delivered. This film has lush production values and a impeccable cast! Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell as villains? That’s a winning combination right there! Scarlett Johansson and Gwyneth Paltrow as the hot super hero babes? Double knock out! Don Cheadle as the sidekick who is awesome on his own? The Icing on the cake! So at least casting wise this movie headed in the right direction. In thing that I found kind of funny is how Jon Favreau gave himself a bigger role this time around. On the first film he was just Tony Starks limo driver. On this sequel he still plays Starks limo driver/body guard, only thing is this time around he actually ends up kicking some ass and serving as comedy relief in an action scene. I guess being the director has its privileges.  

Script wise, the film develops at just the right pace in my opinion. Many people complained that theres not enough action, but I don’t think I agree with these comments. Sometimes people complaint that there isn’t enough character development in a film, that the film is hollow and has no heart, but then when they give them a movie that fills those gaps, they complain that there isn’t enough action. If you ask me, this movie had the perfect balance between awesome action sequences and good character development. The film was written by Justin Theroux who wrote the super funny comedy Tropic Thunder a couple of years ago and has also acted himself on a couple of films like David Lynch's Inland Empire and Mullholand Drive. I think he wrote a good superhero film. It explores its characters and doesnt only concentrate on action and special effects. We get to know Tony Stark a little better this time around. We get to know about his past, his father, how he grew up, why he is who he is.   

In my book the flaws on Iron Man 2 were not many. The only thing that I can complaint about is that I wished the ending had been just a tad more elaborate and spectacular. Destruction had to be on gargantuan levels, yet they never peeked with the climactic action sequence. It is a good and extended action sequence, but it needed a little extra oomph to take it into epic and spectacular levels. It needed to be a bit closer, more in your face. More visceral. We needed to see Iron Man getting into bigger trouble, be in more peril. As it is, during the last action sequence you never feel the hero is in peril. Whenever he has his suit on, the guy is invincible. This guy’s body armor is indestructible, nothing harms it. Iron Man's invincibility takes away the tension, the peril. The final fight with Whiplash (Rourke) needed to be something that would wow us, instead, it ends with a whimper. This is really the one and only problem I had with the movie.

The rest of the film is fantastic in my opinion. It explores Iron Mans darker side when we see Tony Stark getting drunk in a party while wearing the Iron Man suit. This is an element that I loved in the movie because it comes straight out of the comics. I mean, Iron Man has always been a hero that’s had to battle with his drinking problem. There was a story arc called "Demon in a Bottle" which showed us a Tony Stark going into drunk rages, going all sorts of evil and crazy, kind of like that time that Superman turns into "evil Superman" in Superman III. They translated that struggle in the film really well. It offers us one of the movies funniest moments. Robert Downey Jr. is a pleasure to watch in the role of Tony Stark, he is lively, funny, and spontaneous so it never gets boring whenever he is on the screen. Mickey Rourke pulled off a pretty convincing Russian accent in the film, which can be a problem when not done well. Speaking of his character, he looks bad ass with those electrical whiplashes; the scene in the middle of the car race is awesome. If only they had more of that awesomeness during the films last frames and the movie might have been perfect.

Iron Man going on one of his drunken rages, it gets pretty ugly in the comics

The biggest draw about this movie is the introduction of the War Machine character, played by Don Cheadle. I have to say that it was pulled off very well. The character looks exactly the way he does in the comics. I loved how he serves as Tony Starks conscience, telling him things like “you are not worthy of wearing that armor!” The teaming up of the two in the ending is awesome, if only it had been more complex than getting chased around by a couple of flying drones!

The thing about reading Marvel Comics (or any comic series for that matter) is that they usually leave you with a cliffhanger; they always have some sort of continuity to them to get you involved so you can come back next week for the next issue. This element of reading comic books has been effectively translated to the silver screen with films based on Marvel characters. Samuel L. Jackson returns as Nick Fury agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. I love how he has been a constant through out all these movies…lets just hope that that Avengers movie thats coming in a few years (supposedly Josh Whedon will be directing) lets him truly shine in the role. Samuel Jackson has a more elaborate participation on this film, but his performance in Iron Man 2 remains an extended cameo of sorts. So was Iron Man 2 better then the first? Well, I had fun with it. It has excellent production values, the effects and action sequences were great. I really dont have anything bad to say about this movie save for the short fight between hero and villain in the climax. A fun summer blockbuster, made better because its excellent cast. As with most Marvel Comics movies, theres a little something extra after the credits. Hint: it has something to do with Mjollnir!

Rating: 3 out of 5