Escape to the Movies: Iron Man 3

[Kataskopo]

Meh, I actually didn't like it. Mostly because of the motivations of the villian, they were so flimsy and "yeah, because I wan't to fuck things up" compared to the other two movies, especially the second one.

I don't think you understood his motivation...

Well, no I didn't.

So we see that Tony Stark dissed Guy Pearce a long time ago but he made a comeback. Did he wanted revenge?

Or was it about creating terrorists and becoming a defense contractor at the same time? That's... just evil. Why? Didn't he wanted to conquer the world too?

 

[Arina Love]

just out from seeing it and i got kida bored, still better than the second movie.

 

[Starik20X6]

Cheat Commandos!
Maybe fighting for freedom,
And each is sold separately!
Cheat Commandos!
Probably battling evil,
Buy all our playsets and toys!

Yeah I've got nothing else to add, other than that this movie was awesome.

 

[Sovereignty]

Eh, I liked the film as a whole, but I lost interest after the twist.

Spoiler

I was dead set on having The Mandarin as an equal to Heath Ledgers Joker. Someone who challenges Stark intellectually and morally. The scene where he kills the hostage in front of the world made me think "yeah. This guy is intimidating and I look forward to the final showdown, because you know something's going to happen."

Then the twist happened, and I was left thinking "really? They pulled the old "The Man Behind The Man" trope, after they set up such an awesome villain?" It left quite a bitter taste in my mouth.

And there was just a bit too much humour in it for my taste.

Spoiler

During the final showdown, after Pepper has been "killed" and Tony is pissed, the Mark 42 armour comes back, and instead of being an awesome moment, is sacrificed for comedic effect. After Pepper has been killed. Why would they do that?

And why the hell did Stark give a terrorist his home address? When I saw the trailers, I assumed The Mandarin targeted him to make an example, but nope; it was the "genius" Stark who told him where he lived.

Oh, and one other thing. How did Stark know the soldiers patrolling the mansion weren't Extremi-fied? What would have happened if he went there with his makeshift gadgets, only to find out they are all way too powerful for him?

It is a decent enough film, I did enjoy it overall, but those points really dropped me out of the moment.

I'm with you on this one. I don't think the whole, "couldn't the guards be 'extemi-fied'?" but I think your other points are spot on.

It's one of those M. Night Shyamalan type of things. Sure it's a twist, but it doesn't suddenly become great just because you didn't see it coming. They really had a villain who was shaping up to be something awesome and kind of just cast it to the side for the sake of shock value.

And then the damn shards. Why did it take 3 movies for him to remove them? I remember them being inoperable, but now magically it's fixable? Just lazy.


Not better than any of the former movies in the Avengers series, except of course the second flick.

Also, why the hell is War Machine constantly played down? Is he this useless in the comics?

 

[Berithil]

I personally did NOT like the twist

Spoiler: Obvious Spoilers...

Yes, it was funny, but the Mandarin was one of the villains I was looking forward to the most, complete with the Ten Rings. Relegating one of the most iconic Iron Man villains to a puppet plot tool irked me. Like someone already said, I was hoping for a Heath Ledger Joker kind of villain. But nope.

Killian, at the end: "I AM THE MANDARIN!!"

No. You're not.

Other than that, I did enjoy the movie.

Spoiler

Now let's see if we get MODOK in an upcoming movie...

 

[mrblakemiller]

My two cents:

Rebecca Hall is the greatest actress working today, with maybe Meryl Streep still contending. It's a damn shame her part is so small it could've been written out of the script in five minutes. Why exactly did they need her there, other than to increase the number of females in the film?

The final action scene was great, especially getting to see Rhodey kick ass without a suit. Wish they would explain why Stark is okay with him stealing it and giving it to the government. Shouldn't he want that back, or want some recompense for it?

The action is so sparse in this one that I kinda wish I'd come in an hour late. And the down-time he has in Tennessee has some funny moments (and the fight was good), but I really don't want to see hero-kid bonding in my MArvel movies unless maybe Rick Jones is involved.

Spoiler: My take on the twist

I'm okay with the twist for the Mandarin in-universe, and Ben Kingsley acted it terrifically on both sides, but we've already had Iron Man vs. Corrupt Corporate Executive to varying degrees in the last two movies. I was really looking forward to seeing Iron Man vs. Bin Laden. We've officially had tech genius vs. tech genius three times now. I request something different for next time, especially now that the connecting MArvel movies have been made and the studio has already taken the leap of faith of hoping audiences will embraces sci-fi and magic plots and villains.

I kinda want to see it again just to be sure my low opinion of it isn't largely due to the fact that YOU CAN NEVER GO TO THE MOVIES ANYMORE WITHOUT JERKWADS TALKING, but I'm not going to spend money on it again.

 

[Korskarn]

Meh, I actually didn't like it. Mostly because of the motivations of the villian, they were so flimsy and "yeah, because I wan't to fuck things up" compared to the other two movies, especially the second one.

I don't think you understood his motivation...

By the time we get to the end, he doesn't HAVE a motivation.

Spoiler

The guy is talking about "creating supply and demand" for defence contracts, but he's already got millions of dollars, an army of nigh-invulnerable supersoldiers, and the vice-president (and planned-to-be-future-president) in his pocket.

To paraphrase Lex Luthor, "You think that's my goal? Do you realise how much power I'd GIVE UP if I did that?"

 

[Sergey Sund]

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is an AWESOME and funny movie. It's also a good flick to take a shot every time that somebody dies.
Looking forward to finaly seeing Iron Man 3 now.
I hear from friends it was good (one fell asleep 45 minutes in, to the entertainment of all, and his own shame) but if a movie is compared to a Jackie Chan AND a Lethal Weapon flick it can't be all bad.
captcha: Buffalo Wing

 

[Marik2]

Just saw the movie and wow it is really inconsistent in mood. One moment there are people burning from the inside out and lots of terrorist war footage and then they stick some slapstick humor after it

Dont have a problem with it but it seemed the movie was trying to do different things but they couldn't agree so they did everything

 

[mrblakemiller]

I have more to say!

Spoiler: The medical aspect some people are mad about

I didn't like the fact that "Oh yeah, I fixed my heart," was so throwaway. At least have him have a conversation with Pepper about it so we can hear more specifics. First off, how is he able to do that now? Some people are saying that he perfected the Extremis virus, but I didn't hear that in the film. And if he did, does that mean he can regenerate limbs now? Is Extremis going to be marketed so little girls can grow their legs back? That would be an interesting turn for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to take, but it won't happen because Reed Richards is useless. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUseless] Also, I don't remember the film telling us that the Vice-President was evil, do you?

Also, I made a huge claim up top saying that Rebecca Hall is the greatest actress working today. Thought I'd share what I consider some proOh My God they deleted the Rebecca Hall music video for "A Case of You" from Youtube! You bastards!

 

[Kingjackl]

Having just seen the film, I have to say I absolutely loved it. Particularly the twists which I know people will be upset by.

 

[gorfias]

Maybe I missed it here. Is anyone else bothered by...

Spoiler

most of the tension for this movie come from Tony being down to one experimental suit that is badly banged up. I suspended disbelief and pretended not to remember that Tony has a penthouse building full of other suits and went with it. It worked, it was fun, it was good, and then, at the end of the movie, he just calls in 50 robotic suits to come aid him. Where the heck were they the rest of the movie? I'm very surprised I'm not seeing everyone screaming about this. I can take the Mandarin and other problems, but this undid the entire reason for tension in this movie. Oh, and "Clean Slate" was stupid.

 

[omegawyrm]

I actually really liked the villain's motivation, both as a "this is what Tony would have been without his wake-up call in the first movie" thing, and maybe because the Metal Gear games have made "controlling both sides of a war largely just to be a dick to this one guy who pissed me off, and also control the world I guess" seem like such a reasonable motivation for a bad guy.

And one of Tony's suits totally moves like Monsoon in Revengeance.

 

[Snowsongwolf]

The thing that surprised me about this movie was that it brought to light the fact that I cared about a robotic arm (the one Tony always ostracizes for doing things wrong).

 

[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":

That shouldn't have ever been spoiled in the first fucking place since you know some guy's going to go click it anyway and then be disappointed later. You know you're ruining it for somebody because you couldn't wait to talk about it here.
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".
Maybe it was to build this thing called "tension"? Your complaints should rather be focused on how predictable it was that Pepper would just get up after that.

Spoiler: Spoilers inside...

So me discussing what I didn't like is a no-go, because others are going to click on the spoiler and get the movie spoiled, but that won't stop you from debating me in spoilers?
Also: It would have built tension if it hadn't been so damn obvious that Pepper didn't die and that she was going to come back and possibly save the day, seeing as she has also gained ultra-mutant super-solider powers.

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?

And then the damn shards. Why did it take 3 movies for him to remove them? I remember them being inoperable, but now magically it's fixable? Just lazy.

Wow, looks like some people don't know how to pay attention to a movie. He had the perfected formula administered into him and then was able to remove the shrapnel that couldn't be removed or he would otherwise die because his heart would then just regenerate after removing them.

Spoiler

Didn't he just mention that he managed to "heal" pepper from the Extremis treatment etc? If he actually managed to improve the Extremis stuff in order to go through surgery, then fair enough.

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.
You can't deny that last "suit failing" gag with the Mk.42 coming in during the final fight was funny.

Spoiler

Yeah, I got a slight chuckle out of that, but mostly because of RDJ's delivery. And I really could have done without it.

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.
I consider this villain to be like a good version of Hammer from Iron Man 2. His snake-like attitude, his opportunistic and inhumane weaponization of humans into living bombs can make a viewer learn to hate him, whereas Hammer's "hey man, whazzis allabout drones, bro?" antics leave the viewer with absolutely no emotional feedback whatsoever.

Spoiler: Villanous things

And that guy left you with emotional feedback? For me he was very much on par with Stane and Hammer, in so far as that I didn't hate him, I didn't love to hate him, he just seemed like another bland Douche McEvildoer, specialized in doing the evilest evil in evil history. He was fun to behold at times, but mostly I was left somewhat unsatisfied. The mandarin seemed like a really well-done villain in the trailers and the first part of the movie, so much so, that suddenly being left with just another genius-businessman gone mad was very disappointing.

Spoiler: The last one for now

Again, I did not like the movie very much. It was alright, maybe slightly above average, but even if we continue to argue back and forth, my opinion probably wouldn't change. Good for you that you liked it, but I clearly didn't enjoy it as much as you, for reasons I have stated in a slightly hyperbolic fashion in my first post in this thread.

 

[SixShooter]

Iron Man 3 is not a good movie. Some spoilers follow, so skip if you don't want to read them:

Spoiler

1)The bizarre tonal shifts into action-comedy aren't "daring". They're simply an attempt to rescue a weak and poorly built skeleton. Consider that without the jokes, you'd have little semblance of a story, and very bland cookie cutter action. There's nothing that really advances the Marvel Universe, and nothing that really advances the Iron Man universe, baring the ending which we'll get to in a bit.

2)Iron Man is barely in this movie. The "I've discovered that without my suit, I'm still Iron Man" bit, reeks of desperate post fact editing. All we get is Captain Jack Sparrow roaming around saying funny things, broken up with a few minutes of shooting Stark Industries weak-sauce at the lava-mutants. As another poster pointed out: Iron man doesn't even defeat the final boss. We get the evolved form of Pepper Potts lamely taking out Guy Pearce in a fashion that shouldn't have killed him...

3) Super hero movies deal with the problem of their protagonists being too powerful for real drama, it's true. But the way IM3 deal with this was to ridiculously sabotage Iron Man. He's got PTSD, is sleep deprived, gets taken off-guard, has to defend Pepper Potts before he can defend himself, and none of his suits work. To say that the movie "leans into this plot device too much" is an understatement. It's basically as if Superman spent 98% of his movie without super powers. Only worse, because in the 2% where he has his powers, he's still getting his ass kicked by people he should be able to handle no problem.

To put it in the context of the calibration demonstrated in avengers: Apparently the average lava grunt is > Thor in terms of ability to destroy Iron Man's armor.

4) Sloppy story telling. Despite all the "I'm more than my suit!!" stuff, the final act is still resolved through a literal Deus ex Machina.

5) Plot holes:

-What was the villain's motivation? They made it clear that it wasn't just madness, but why then go through the trouble of this plot? He's already filthy rich, and the potential use for the bio-weapon/healing agent would be worth untold billions done straight up. Is it about "power?" What would he gain by putting the Vice-President in place, that (A) he didn't already have enough of, and (B) Is worth the risk?

-Guy Pearce forgets that he can breathe fire when he would've won with it. Lolwut.

-The durability of the lava mutants is all over the map. Why can the chest laser kill them, but then suddenly not, but then suddenly a bomb is enough, just after it wasn't =\.

-Why was War Machine's suit so easily disabled, but then suddenly A-OK after the President was taken out of it?

-Why was Tony Stark able to find the Mandarin so easily, yet the U.S. military was clueless as to where the broadcast point was?

-Why was the security around the Mandarin so lapse?

-Why did Tony have no air defense technology at his mansion? Considering the he basically runs a major arms depot right by the water, shouldn't there have been some basic surface-to-air stuff?

-How is he able to get the shrapnel out of his chest?

-etc etc etc the plot is stupid.

6)Acting like you're trolling isn't an adequate distraction for making a weak movie. The overly self-referential "wah we'll break down if you ask about the avengers", and "I got nothing", and "I'm more than just my suits" and the audience abusing post-credit skit, try to give the movie the air of subversiveness (Bob fell for this). It's not. It's just a lazy movie that's empty. There's nothing there.

2.5 stars out of 4 is about right. It's not boring, has some neat explosions, and some of the laughs (in the middle) are decent. But it doesn't carry it's weight near enough to be considered "good" and certainly is lightyears away from great.

 

[SixShooter]

Now, regarding Bob's review, it has to be said: The weird hate crusade against Nolan and the Batman trilogy has gone from quirky to juvenile. It's at a point where Bob is clearly trying to come up for post-fact rationalizations as to why these weak "real" comic movies, are somehow better than the Batman movies. They're not. Between the constant bashing in the reviews, his columns, and in twitter, it's clear that Bob is just carrying out some extended meta-argument with someone/something. The movie reviews are coming secondary, and his quality is drastically suffering because of it.

 

[Reyalsfeihc]

Shane Black man... Respect. When the film started with the narration, I couldn't help but smile like an idiot. The humour was just so good, along with almost everything else. Only thing I didn't like:

Spoiler

Wasn't it established what he CAN'T remove the shrapnel? I'm a bit confused.

Otherwise it's just very very good. Not Avengers good. But still very good.

And for the record: I loved the Avengers, think Captain America was the worst Marvel film (and I think that Bob has a HUGE bias whenever it comes to characters he loves and the US, and it just explodes for this film), find TDKR to be pretty darn good though not TDK good, and think Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a MASTERPIECE.

I was a bit confused about that too, but here's what I think has happened.

Spoiler: Starfish Extravaganza!

At the end it's fully realized that Pepper has the regeneration serum in her that Mandarin uses after... well, you know, the entire finale to that fight sequence. Tony then promises Pepper that he can complete the serum, as his drunk self was close to finishing it 10 years prior. In order for Pepper to survive, we know he would've had to complete the serum, meaning that he has a serum that can perfectly alter human DNA in order to allow for regeneration, in which case why would he NOT take it. So now we have a Tony Stark that can regenerate himself, which would allow for the shrapnel fragments to be removed, and now Marvel has an excuse to pull a "Well look, he's not REALLY dead" moment.

Just my two cents.

 

[Reyalsfeihc]

snip

You should really put those in spoiler tags unless you want a bad time

Spoiler

spoiler text

 

[gorfias]

Spoiler: I'm about to discuss a few quibbles, including my own:

Spoiler

Lot of people seem confused about the shrapnel removal. We can just assume surgery techniques have come far in the last 9 years and it can now be removed.

I liked that they were able to add tension by not having Tony in his suit the whole movie. I hated that he could just call 50 other robotic suits to save the day at the end of the movie. Where the heck were they the rest of the movie!?!?! Calibanbuster offered this: if you can suspend your recollection that Tony has a building in New York with more suits, you can buy that the other suits didn't get used for most of the movie as they were trapped under ground by rubble that had been removed by the end of the movie.
1) Ironmans, including Hulk Buster trapped by rubble? OK. Just go with it.
2) I think they should have come up with a plot device that shows Tony get informed the freaking moment enough rubble had been removed to free them. Otherwise, I don't think it would have been in the middle of the night during a fire fight but again, it would have been infinitely better than the deus ex experience we had of Tony going the whole movie without his armor, only to call 50 robots when he needed them at the end.