Iron Man 3

[The Laughing Fish]

Saw this today.

Pros: It was much better than Iron Man 2, which I did not care for to say the least. I thought this one actually had a plot.

Cons: It strays VERY differently from the comics, and this is coming from someone who doesn't even know much about Iron Man comics. I won't say reveal anything though because I don't want to give away spoilers. I felt some of the humor was grating, though not as much as the second film.

I liked it overall, but I'll admit it's a bizarre movie at the same time. I appreciate that they tried something new with the story, yet at the same time I can't help but feel some very important aspects of it was its downfall. 

If you want to watch a serious Iron Man though, be warned, the trailers are a false advertisement. Then again at least the film had the decency to not take itself so seriously, it could've been unbearable otherwise.

[gordonblu]

I saw it last night and really enjoyed it......


except for a certain aspect that was saved ONLY by the actor playing the specific part in question.

Can't get Brian Tyler's closing title music out of my head, LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!

[thecolorsblend]

From what I gather, a reveal in this movie pretty much stabs the comic book mythos in the back, breaks the knife off at the handle and pisses on the corpse as it lays dying and bleeding out. But being as I have absolutely no stake whatsoever with Iron Man as a comic book character, I don't care. That's part of it. The other part of it is that I don't need a bunch of angry fanboys who openly embraced Nolan's Joker to suddenly be all "reverent" about this particular concept from the comics. Don't call yourself a "purist" unless you know what the word means.

Me, I greatly enjoyed the movie. It's a vast improvement over Iron Man 2. The main reason for this is that the first movie put Tony at the center of everything. All of the conflicts, complications and resolutions relate back to him specifically. Iron Man 2 didn't really give us that. It wasn't so much about "Tony Stark" as it was "Iron Man vs. His Own Technology". (A) That's derivative of what the first movie did somewhat and (B) it didn't spring directly from Tony. I understand and agree when people say it's weak sauce (although I do think it's good overall; just not as good as the first one).

IM3 avoids that trap and puts Tony back at the center of everything. Ultimately that's why it works for me. Plus, Tony has one particular conflict/struggle in the movie that hits very close to home for me at the moment. Had I seen this movie even a few months ago, I might not have the same perspective but seeing it right now... well, I'm willing to admit that maybe I'm ignoring obvious flaws because I so emotionally relate to Tony about something.

[phantom stranger]

Just came back from a screening and well...I thought it was awful. At least the last one was a prequel to The Avengers. What was this supposed to be?

Nolan-lite?

[The Laughing Fish]

From what I gather, a reveal in this movie pretty much stabs the comic book mythos in the back, breaks the knife off at the handle and pisses on the corpse as it lays dying and bleeding out. But being as I have absolutely no stake whatsoever with Iron Man as a comic book character, I don't care. That's part of it. The other part of it is that I don't need a bunch of angry fanboys who openly embraced Nolan's Joker to suddenly be all "reverent" about this particular concept from the comics. Don't call yourself a "purist" unless you know what the word means.

Don't get me started. Some of those people who argue that Nolan's take on the Joker was accurate make me do my mind in. The worst case I've read was someone arguing that, and I kid you not, that Conrad Veidt's face from The Man Who Laughs (which as you'd probably know already was the inspiration behind Bob Kane creating the Joker) was not only an inspiration for Nolan's Joker but resembled it too. As you can imagine, reading such stupidity made me the cynical bastard that I am today. And don't get me started on people arguing the Golden Age Joker was an inspiration; after having read some of those stories I have no idea what sort of delusional behavior that these people suffer from.

Back to Iron Man 3, I thought the twist was a gutsy change, and I certainly didn't anticipate it. At least people who liked the movie can admit to the changes that happened here, unlike a lot of people from a certain fan-base.  One thing I find a bit hard to swallow though is one could easily mistake the film for being much darker if they watched the trailers alone. But like I said, I'm grateful that it wasn't too serious. Although not one without its own faults, at least this movie had a story that made Stark have a lot at stake to fight for, unlike the last one where the plot never went anywhere, and Mickey Rourke being pushed aside for the guy reprising his Charlie's Angels role.

[Batman333]

Saw it two days ago.  Thought it was absolute GARBAGE....  I mean, it was on the same level as Spider-Man 3...

Character Development
There was none. I felt Tony was still the same at the end of the film, but decided to get surgery to remove the sharpnel. Pepper was the same. They were hinting at a love triangle with BOTH Tony, Killian and Pepper - but it never developed at all. Then they hinted at another love triangle with Tony, Pepper and the new girl, whatever her name was. But that never went anywhere EITHER!!! Then they hinted that Killian was upset for standing on a rooftop waiting for Tony, but that sort of was brought up in a line from Guy Pearce at the end, but I'm still not sure if he did all of this crap because of Tony or if he was just an evil mad scientist. Very strange. There was no Pepper / Tony relationship. Tony was in Tennessee with a kid. I only got banter and punch lines from Tony / Pepper and Tony / Rhodey.

The Comedy
STOP with the comedy already. Shane Black really loved making Kiss Kiss bang bang, in fact so much, he tried to do that dark comedy crap in Iron Man 3. I have NO problem with comedy. Look at the stuff in Iron Man 1,2, Avengers. Real great one liners - but they were PUT in the CORRECT spots in the film. In this film, Tony is joking right after he thinks Pepper died. I mean, you are in the most crutial part of the film, and Tony is cracking one liners like an idiot. The beats were way off...AND to top it off, the jokes weren't that charming or funny like in the other films. My theater was PACKED, and only got like three jokes that pleased the audience to make them laugh alot. A lot of the hardcore comedy, like the Tony fan coming in the news van with the Tony tattoo on his arm, that was straight out of a Michael Bay movie. It didn't work.

The Mandarinn
Then you get to Mandarin. Well, I wont harp on this too much, but it was freaking terrible. It was a bad version of Batman Begins with Ras al Ghul. I don't know too much about Mandarin, but even I didn't buy this. I wanted a mega super villain. Not this.. I understand Guy Pearce was behind it all and technically he was the Mandarin, but to shove Ben Kingsley in a joke of a role was just awful and disappointing. From the beginning , those creepy videos were awesome and I thought this was going to be an epic villain. But it wasn't. I'm tired of comic book movies telling the audience which actors are the characters from the comic books... "I'm Robin" - Joseph Gordon Levitt. "I"m Mandarin" - Guy Pearce. I want to see Robin in the f'n suit fighting people. Not a beat up cop who's name is Robin. Prove it to the audience... And there was nothing to prove because mandarin was a super soldier fire ball thing, played by Guy Pearce.

War Machine / Rhodey
He was barely in the movie. It was suppose to be exciting because these two War Machine and Iron man were the only ones with the suit and best friends in real life, but the characters only interacted a few times. You could have done some cool things with Rhodes, but they chose not to. Rhodey completely disappeared in the middle of the film. The director gets to use oscar nominee Don Cheadle again and doesn't even end up doing anything with the character. This goes back to character development, but there was none with Rhodey. In Iron Man 2, he kind of had to turn on Tony in the beginning of the film to end up fighting side by side with him. That was a character arc. Here? There was none..


Pepper Potts
You get oscar winner Paltrow to return and don't even use her properly. I guess rather than a character development with a relationship with Tony, they would rather just give her super powers and make her kill Guy pearce to make up for the non-existant relationship with her and tony. I guess they had relationship issues at the beginning of the movie, but for whatever reason, they just worked itself out on its own. I'm still not sure why, but it did. the first Iron Man, you established the characters. The second one , they fall in love. So the third one is suppose to be dealing with issues in their relationship and how does she deal with Tony as Iron Man and keep a strong relationship. But that wasn't the case here. They bickered in the beginning, then Paltrow disappeared, then she became super-fire thing at the end and saved the day and I guess they are back to in love??? Im not really sure what the f happened with all that. Also, for Pepper to go through villian-y stuff was too much. She's not a super power hero. Don't give her anything. I understand we love the character, but lets create depth and a character arc. Not "Okay, shes awesome, lets get her to do action stuff".


Killian - Guy Pearce
So we take Riddler from Batman Forever and all him Killian, then make him Mandarin. Okay, got it. No thanks. This all goes back to character arc. What is this character's motivation? Does he want to create super soldiers and take over the world because Tony never came to rooftop in 1999 ? huh ? I could not find any character depth in this character. In the first movie, Jeff Bridges wanted to take over Stark company bc he thought Tony sucked. In the second movie, Vanko was motivated by revenge. A vendetta against Tony. Families hated one another. There was some character depth and motivation. All I saw was Jim Carrey's Riddler in the movie, then somehow he was a fire breathing monster at the end, somehow by some injection Still not sure what the heck was going on, nor did I care because I didn't know who this guy was. The insult came when he announced "I am the Mandiran" and he had dragon tattoos on his chest. I mean, this is really stupid. Its like if Two Face said "I'm the real Joker" and then he put lip stick on and the Heath ledger joker was some drug addict actor. Fans would be pissed. Why should it work in this movie ? It just seemed to copy off of Batman Begins with Ras Al Ghul mixed with Riddler from Batman Forever.


Salvin & Killian's Henchmen
This was simply the worst part in the film, imo.. I really thought about it and the fact that alot of these humans were injected and turned into fire monsters really watered down the main villain. THink about it. If Killian was the only one with this fire breathing stuff, it would have been a cool ending , but when EVERYONE has this same power, it makes it kind of lame. Not only that, but I couldn't figure out how these guys could be killed. And then if you are going to have fire monsters from another movie enter Iron Man 3, then have IRON MAN kill them, not Tony Stark with a freaking gun running around Tennessee. I mean, it was dumb. And then you have henchmen in the miami mansion with guns - were they fire breathing monsters too ? And why were the fire breathing monsters helping Killian ? Did they get brainwashed ? If so, I wish they would have explained that. But the truth is the first two Iron Man movies didn't have monsters. Iron Man and the villains were suppose to be mechincal based in the real world. Fire breathing monsters seemed it came from a monster movie into Iron Man film which was incredibly lame. Not only that, but the henchmen were simply too powerful. How could two fire monsters get defeated by non-iron man suited Tony Stark in Tennesse is still confusing. I found those scenes to be more from a horror movie than anything. But yet, they made comedic jokes during even the scary parts of the film.. The freakign guys CANT DIE. There was no resolution. When they were killed, it just turns out they were hurt and they just reformed and walked away. It was frustrating because not only are these characters from another movie that don't belong here, but couldn't die.



Rebecca Hall
This is another missed opprotunity. You could use her to test Tony's relationship. But of course not. Not this movie. Instead, she works for Killian and tries to betray Tony by capturing Pepper (i think). But then I think she changes her mind and tries to help Tony by turning on Killian. So she threatens to kill herself, because I guess she's also a fire breathing monster. But then Killian shoots her anyway. What a freaking MESS !!!!!!! I mean, this character has ZERO depth. Is a double triple agent. You don't know what she wants, who she is, if she is with Killian or likes Tony ? I mean, we've seen that cliche female spy in 007 movies all the time that are undercover with the villain, but end up falling for Bond, only to die in the hands of the main villain for betraying him. But why throw in this element in freaking Iron Man 3 Horrible. Absolutely horrible. Could have used her to test the relationship and give more character depth to Tony, but you have to just throw her in these scenes for reasons.....


Watered Down Suits
Iron Man 1 and 2 worked because only Tony, Rhodey and the villain had the technology to produce and get in the armored suits to fight Iron man and War Machine. Iron Man 1 , he built a suit for himself on re-creating the first one Tony made. Awesome. Iron Man 2, it expanded. Vanko had the brains of Tony and made his own technology to fight Tony. It was different than the last villain and different than Tony / War machine. In this one, Tony has tons of suits, remote control Iron Man ? That technology flying on Tony was cool, i guess, but that should have been the sort of climax battle. They introduced it in the beginning and then we saw it 40 more times to the point where the audience is like "okay, we've seen that". You see all these henchmen with super fire powers. One of them got in the iron patriot suit. The President is in the suit. Pepper Potts is in the suit. Tony is in like 5 suits at the end. The suit is in the suit walking around , remote controlled by Tony. It just became watered down. Like everyone and their mother can get in a suit. You don't have to have special training or intelligence like the four previous guys in the last two movies. Nope, instead you can just hop in a suit and fly, do whatever. No problem. Eric Salvin can just hop in a suit and fly without any problems. But the President in the suit is helpless (somehow??). When I saw President in the suit, I was like "Why couldn't he just fly away?" . Was Killian controlling the iron patriot suit ?


Conspiracy Theory
So Adrian Killian is behind everything. The Ben Kingsley Mandiran is just an actor. But the Vice President is also involved with Killian Okay, now we are taking another turn in the film. Oh no, the VP is involved, so the President has to die. Why didn't Salvin in the Iron patriot suit just shoot the President when he boarded Air Force One ? But the whole conspiracy angle just came out of nowhere. It is as if the movie didn't know wheather to be a revenge plot for Killian or indeed a conspiracy plot where Killian was just a player in a grande scale of things. It was dumb and it was another added element that shouldnt have been in Iron man 3. At least if you're going to use that element, expand on it to make the audience CARE... Instead, just another dumb added idea shoved into Iron Man 3.



Ripping off of Austin Powers
Killian has captured Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Rhodey, and the President. Does he kill any of them? No, instead just like Austin Powers, Dr. Evil tells the good guy his whole evil plan. WTF? That is so cliche!! Why did they do that ?? And as I mentioned before, the villains are too powerful, it seemed just 'luck' that the good guys even won. And the good guys should have won because Tony was in the Iron Man suit kicking ass with the help of Rhodey. Instead, it was drone robots that saved the day with Tony going from suit to suit. They blow up Tony's mansion, trying to kill him. When they capture him alive, they tell him the evil plan. And what is the relationship with Killian to Tony? Does he want revenge for leaving him on that rooftop ? I don't know and at this point, don't care. Why did they try to kill Tony at the mansion, but not in Miami.


Director Shane Black's Style
His style did not work well with Iron Man. I saw Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and it was a dark comedy that was different. Iron Man 3 was suppose to be a super hero genre film. Not dark comedy, with the same character from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in Iron Man 3. The pacing was not that good. The editing wasn't that good. His comedy beats were atrocious. Tony thought Pepper died and he is cracking one liners a few moments later. That is a bad director. The truth is he doesn't understand super hero genre. The whole narration thing bothered me too. This isn't Kiss kiss Bang Bang. This is Iron Man 3. Just give me a stand alone action adventure film with a LITTLE BIT OF COMEDY that feels FUN that can lead into Avengers 2, please. That worked for phase 1 and this is an awful way to start phase 3.


In Conclusion
The movie was weakest of the 7 Avenger movies. As a stand alone film, it was horrible. As a movie that ties into Phase 2 Avengers 2 , it is even MORE horrible. Bad characters. Bad plot. Plot holes. Nothing made sense. Dumb villains. Insulting comic book mandiran fans. I did enjoy some of the special effects. I always like seeing actors that portrayed good characters return. But overall, I feel Shane Black is a terrible director who tried to do some different things with Iron man film and really failed. I feel that Jon Faverau should have made this film and this movie just shows how talented Mr. Favareu is and how the first two Iron mans were so much better. For the people saying "This was awesome Iron man film", I feel the same phrases were said after Spider-Man 3 came out. After the dust settles, Iron man 3 will be put right next to Spider-Man 3, as an awful superhero film that tried to do too many things, no character arcs or depth and probably most important, responsible for ruining great comic book mythology of the characters venom for Spider-Man 3 and Mandarin for Iron Man 3. Maybe Kevin Feige should have put a little more input into the making on this film , it just seemed like he was comfortable letting Shane Black do what he wanted to do and gave him too much freedom. He needed a filter. This film is a very uneven film. It really reminded me of the Tim Burton Dark Shadows. Here is Tim Burton with his usual cast of Depp and Bonham carter with Danny elfman music with a gothic story line. Perfect, right? But because the script was so uneven, the movie really felt like it didn't know what it wanted to be. Iron Man 3 wanted to be a action adventure movie, a dark comedy, a scary horror movie, a revenge story, a relationship story, a character piece on Tony and his journey as a dead man, a conspiracy movie, etc, etc.. And it didn't work.

Iron Man 3 - 4 out of 10

[phantom stranger]

I'll co-sign to everything Batman333 just stated.

Ultimately, I think it all comes down to this: RDJ is so awesome in the role that Marvel figures they can just do anything and people will show up. And it appears that (for now) they're right.

[gordonblu]

Shane Black's original cut of the film was around 3 hours, so some of the issues raised here might have been answered (then again maybe not). The only thing I really took issue with was Kingsley's Mandarin which worked only because Ben Kingsley was so good. That said, between Kingsley and Pearce, Kingsley was much more mesmerizing and memorable which made putting him on the back burner a major mistake.

[Azrael]

Plus, Tony has one particular conflict/struggle in the movie that hits very close to home for me at the moment. Had I seen this movie even a few months ago, I might not have the same perspective but seeing it right now... well, I'm willing to admit that maybe I'm ignoring obvious flaws because I so emotionally relate to Tony about something.

Why some people loved Nolan's Third, overlooking some obvious flaws?

[thecolorsblend]

Character Development
There was none. I felt Tony was still the same at the end of the film, but decided to get surgery to remove the sharpnel.

He struggled with PTSD through out the movie and rather than returning to his self-aggrandizing superheroics, he willfully entered retirement. I'll allow that they didn't didactically spell out every single step of his character arc but don't these things seem like a far cry from the character we saw at the end of the first movie to you?

Ripping off of Austin Powers
Killian has captured Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Rhodey, and the President. Does he kill any of them? No, instead just like Austin Powers, Dr. Evil tells the good guy his whole evil plan. WTF? That is so cliche!! Why did they do that ??

This is a trope of the format. If you don't like this, you don't like comic books.