Escape to the Movies: Iron Man 3

[Silverspetz]

Allow me to summarize both of these posts for people who thought TL,DR. "I don't know shit about comic book movies and resent that a product based on previous products would expect me to be familiar of the original. Every movie should consider my ignorance, and make up for it! That's how we get awesome superhero movies like Tim Burton's BATMAN!!! Also Poop!" Your welcome.

Correction: I resent that a medium based on previous mediums is trying to introduce their worst tropes (Bucky breaks his own fucking rule for god's sake) to this medium, and one critic in particular is showing his bias by giving that medium a pass for shit he usually takes other movies to task for. Every movie should NOT be given a pass just for sticking to something in the source material for the fanboys even if it's a really terrible idea (like how Bob wants everything to look like the Silver/Golden Age of comics). That's how we get shit movies like Captain America!!! Also Poop!

None of those "worst tropes" you listed have appeared yet. These movies are embracing the comic-book STYLE of over the top energy and humor, not constant convoluted retcons to keep the status quo (in fact this movie in particular makes a big deal out of the fact that they are changing that status quo in the end). Cameos occur but not in a way that breaks up the flow or narrative.

Bob has not been biased in his reviews of these movies. He may overall forgive them for some things and enjoy them none the less for what they are but if a comic-book movie is bad he calls it out just like he would any other movie. If you want to accuse him of bias then you can at least do a better job of it by not just calling a movie he likes shit without explaining why.

 

[rda_Highlander]

I've made my own review of the movie, here: http://unbalancedopinions.blogspot.com/2013/05/iron-man-3-detailed-review.html
(it's long and SPOILS EVERYTHING)

and I have to say that I don't agree with Bob on this one occasion The movie is completely weak, if it wasn't for the action sequences. Definitely weakest recent Marvel movie yet. I know that opinions are greatly diverging, but apart from the fact that it's the first post-Avengers Marvel movie, I really don't get the excitement.

 

[gorfias]

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

Spoiler

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.

Spoiler

Actually they did. Right before Iron man flies to Airforce 1, Jarvis makes a comment that construction crews have the lower deck of his mansion cleaned up and the southern wall removed.

That's pretty good. Not perfect, but I buy it. Other than that, while people can quibble, I think I'm largely OK with this movie. Bummer about the big twist but like movie bob says, good story over fidelity. I guess it works pretty well for me. I'll take it as my own shortcoming that I missed this particular plot point.

 

[blalien]

I never saw Iron Man 2, and my girlfriend never saw the first two (we did see the Avengers). Is Iron Man 3 still worth seeing right away, or should we get caught up first?

 

[irishda]

Bob has not been biased in his reviews of these movies. He may overall forgive them for some things and enjoy them none the less for what they are but if a comic-book movie is bad he calls it out just like he would any other movie. If you want to accuse him of bias then you can at least do a better job of it by not just calling a movie he likes shit without explaining why.

He calls them out for being bad...unless they're Marvel.

Very well, let's look at Captain America. Here's Bob's video for it. Now, right off the bat, he says he's tempted to call this the perfect movie. That right there should set off some warning bells that a critic can't find any fault with any movie, but let's dig deeper. There's no mention that the entire third act once Captain actually starts fighting the Nazis completely devolves into a series of rapid-fire montages (which is exactly how they manage to cram this into a "history-spanning epic" that covers the length of the war). There's no criticism that Captain inexplicably has four random guys following him around now. I'm pretty sure they never even said their names, much less got anything remotely close to characterization for them. But Bob undoubtedly loves them, because, as Bob says in the review, he grew up reading about them, so he knows exactly who they are.

But the biggest tell is his highest praise for the movie. In his words, it's a "lack of irony and cynicism". The movie is perfect because it doesn't make fun of his precious source material. In Bob's own words, it's so great because it doesn't try to have complex characters or subvert the source material in order to try to have depth. It's so great because it keeps exactly with the source material for flat, uninteresting characters. "An uncompromisingly good guy versus an evil with a capital 'e' guy." Normally, movies with flat, 1D characters get a word or too about how boring the characters are. But it's okay in this case because they're based on characters Bob likes.

 

[The Deadpool]

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?

Well...

Spoiler

It was an evolving plan. After New York, contracts for the Extremis went up because everyone wants a super hero they can control. Problem is, Extremis isn't ready. There's a small chance they'll explode and kill everyone around them (whoops). Killian doesn't want to wait until the glitch is fully fixed because of greed, so he injects it on people ANYWAYS.

He then creates Mandarin, a super villain to take the credit for said accidental explosions. In this manner, people start investigating the MANDARIN more than the source of the explosions and keeps the whole Extremis thing under the radar.

This next part is barely touched on in the movie, but it seems the President wasn't quite playing ball with AIM as much as Killian wanted (probably not allowing their less moral research, knowing AIM and Killian) so when the opportunity came to get the vice president in his pocket instead, a new plan forms. Tony fixes Extremis and Mandarin kills the president.

Now he has a new President who let's him do what he wants, a country on a manhunt for a super villain and all the demand he could EVER want to sell Extremis and whatever else he can cook up.

In short, his motivation was money. There was probably a little of power corrupts type thing, and not liking Tony, and a crush on Pepper... But primarily? Money.

It isn't perfect. Not quite as straight forward as I would prefer, although to be fair, it's nice to see a plan that evolved over time instead of all of it being planned eons and eons ago.

Also nice to see they used the events of the Avengers as an excuse. Mandarin becomes WAY more believable after aliens invade and wanting super soldiers also becomes quite a bit more likely.

On the other hand too much depends on Tony actually fixing the Extremis and it overstates the power of the US President (as lots of movies do).

 

[The Deadpool]

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

Spoiler

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.

Spoiler

Actually they did. Right before Iron man flies to Airforce 1, Jarvis makes a comment that construction crews have the lower deck of his mansion cleaned up and the southern wall removed.

That's pretty good. Not perfect, but I buy it. Other than that, while people can quibble, I think I'm largely OK with this movie. Bummer about the big twist but like movie bob says, good story over fidelity. I guess it works pretty well for me. I'll take it as my own shortcoming that I missed this particular plot point.

If you want something to quibble over:

Spoiler

Tony and Rhodes state that they can either save the President OR save Pepper.

Tony flies his armor to the President, and fails to save him. The President "escapes" Air Force One with... A SUIT.

The suit flies to the bad guy's home and arrives there BEFORE TONY AND RHODES.

Meaning Tony had plenty of time to fly to Air Force One, save the President, and fly back to where Pepper was... And get there earlier than he actually did.

It's a MINOR quibble, but a pet peeve nonetheless.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Best Christmas film since Die Hard.

I enjoyed the twist, although I went with two comic book lovers and they hated it because it wasn't true to the comics.

I really loved the after credits bit as well... It was all a story he was recounting to the Hulk as therapy.

Although they could have expanded the villain's role and motive a bit more, especially with the Mandarin at the beginning, apart bit more narrative and threat from the few confusing 'America must die' videos would have been nice. The threatening message in the trailers didn't even make the final film, and there was nothing similar to replace them.

 

[immortalfrieza]

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.

This is more or less what I was going to say. I found IM3 to be as good as the Avengers, maybe better, I'm not sure yet.

There's only 2 issues I really have with it, but they're minor spoilers so...

Spoiler

First, they give Pepper fire based superpowers and have her kick the villain's ass, good so far, I like it when women aren't completely helpless, but then they ruin it, since the end it's implied that Tony turns Pepper back to normal, even after it's quite clear that she won't explode, for no apparent reason. In short, they turn Pepper into a badass who's able to actually contribute for once and then take it away. Of course, why let Pepper have the ability to realistically protect herself in a world of Superheroes and Supervillains? After all, if that happens she could no longer be used as a hostage every movie and actually has to have a purpose, and we can't have that.

Second, I hated how they handled War Machine/Rhodes. For one thing, they change his Superhero name into the incredibly lame Iron Patriot just for the sake of a running joke, for another, he barely does anything throughout the entire movie, in fact, he or rather the IP armor does more to help the villain than he does to stop him. The most he contributes is he saves the president, when he wasn't even in any real danger, (the guy was even wearing the IP armor at the time) and then flies off, presumably to stick the president somewhere safe (something that would take only a couple minutes tops) and for no real reason never comes back. Sure Rhodey, just let Tony handle the bad guy and his minions all by himself, it's not like he could END UP DEAD! It's not just the final fight either, there's plenty of moments throughout the movie where Rhodey is doing nothing of importance (and he spends about a 3rd of the movie incapacitated, largely because he fell for the oldest trick in the book) and would been pretty useful. In fact, that's probably the reason why he doesn't really do anything, quite a few of the conflicts in the movie would be solved pretty quickly if Rhodey had actually been doing something. Another thing is that after spending the entirety of the second movie setting War Machine up you'd expect to see some Iron Man and War Machine fighting back to back for about half the 3rd movie's action scenes, and War Machine hardly even fights anyone at ALL the entire movie, much less at Iron Man's side.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Bob has not been biased in his reviews of these movies. He may overall forgive them for some things and enjoy them none the less for what they are but if a comic-book movie is bad he calls it out just like he would any other movie. If you want to accuse him of bias then you can at least do a better job of it by not just calling a movie he likes shit without explaining why.

He calls them out for being bad...unless they're Marvel.

Very well, let's look at Captain America. Here's Bob's video for it. Now, right off the bat, he says he's tempted to call this the perfect movie. That right there should set off some warning bells that a critic can't find any fault with any movie, but let's dig deeper. There's no mention that the entire third act once Captain actually starts fighting the Nazis completely devolves into a series of rapid-fire montages (which is exactly how they manage to cram this into a "history-spanning epic" that covers the length of the war). There's no criticism that Captain inexplicably has four random guys following him around now. I'm pretty sure they never even said their names, much less got anything remotely close to characterization for them. But Bob undoubtedly loves them, because, as Bob says in the review, he grew up reading about them, so he knows exactly who they are.

But the biggest tell is his highest praise for the movie. In his words, it's a "lack of irony and cynicism". The movie is perfect because it doesn't make fun of his precious source material. In Bob's own words, it's so great because it doesn't try to have complex characters or subvert the source material in order to try to have depth. It's so great because it keeps exactly with the source material for flat, uninteresting characters. "An uncompromisingly good guy versus an evil with a capital 'e' guy." Normally, movies with flat, 1D characters get a word or too about how boring the characters are. But it's okay in this case because they're based on characters Bob likes.

Unless that Marvel movie happens to be Amazing Spider-Man, which he's STILL making occasional digs at every once in a while because he hates it so much, and for reasons that aren't even valid, at least not the reasons he actually gives, most if not all aren't actually true.

 

[schwegburt]

Not being a comic book nerd I found the twist to be a relief and quite engaging.

Spoiler

First preview to the silver screen the who Mandarin Middle East meets Far East terrorist master mind made me fucking groan. What a way to play up the jingoistic and xenophobic undercurrents in our Western culture than by creating a Frankenstein amalgamation of our fears.

Then all of the sudden they fucking troll us like Wag the Dog and holy fuck what a relief. Going from anti Western anti capitalist terrorist to corporate, media manipulating scumbag rocked.

It worked, I liked it. As a non comic book reader I find it entertaining how a large chunk of the comic book readership has spazzed out over the change up. Comic book fans put up with contrived ass pulls and retcons in their comics all day. Mostly all of it due to shitty writing. But they can't handle a solid case of intentional bait and switching. So strange.

 

[gorfias]

If you want something to quibble over:

Spoiler

Tony and Rhodes state that they can either save the President OR save Pepper.

Tony flies his armor to the President, and fails to save him. The President "escapes" Air Force One with... A SUIT.

The suit flies to the bad guy's home and arrives there BEFORE TONY AND RHODES.

Meaning Tony had plenty of time to fly to Air Force One, save the President, and fly back to where Pepper was... And get there earlier than he actually did.

It's a MINOR quibble, but a pet peeve nonetheless.

Good one! I recall that and didn't understand why they said that was so (the choice that had to be made) and I quickly forgot anyone mentioned it.

The uneven tone is problematic. Some silly stuff I know my teenage son doesn't want to see, some brutal stuff that should have been rated R.

 

[mrhumble1]

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.

^^ THIS ^^

Though I would give it 2 stars, at most.

I do feel it necessary to post a link to the Marvel Wiki page for Mandarin. Nobody can tell me the lava men are better bad guys than THIS GUY:

http://marvel.com/universe/Mandarin

 

[faefrost]

Just got back from the theatre. I really really liked it. Probably not my favorite Avengers film but easily my favorite of the Iron Man films.

It's going to be interesting to see where they go from here because it seems odd to introduce

Spoiler

Advanced Idea Mechanics

as a one time thing.

Being the bookend story for Avengers Phase 1 and a presumed lead in to Phase 2 I can't wait to see where they're going.

Just my take after seeing it

Spoiler

We really only have Killian's word that he is at the heart of AIM. But he kept talking about "The Master", who honestly is never directly identified as the Mandarin. AIM may still be out there. The actual Master may eventually be another big time IM villain who's name also starts with M. M.O.D.O.K. I'm still mildly miffed at no beekeeper suits.

I actually loved the twist. And I say this as someone who has read pretty much every issue of IM from Tales of Suspense up to the end of the recent Invincible Iron Man series. While Mandarin is a great comic book villain. He would not have worked as well on screen in a more tech centric movie. This misdirection of setting up the villain as Mandarin, and then doing a fake out that it is AIM, possibly one of the best IM villainous organizations was brilliant. I was so worried seeing the trailers that Ben Kingsley was overacting and giving us that same sort of hammy villain we saw from him in things like Thunderbirds (He played "The Hand") or Prince of Persia. Instead he staged a brilliant fakeout of playing a role within a role, and he was wonderful at it. And he surely looked like he was having a blast doing it.

They also snuck in some foreshadowing to other classic villains in this one. Roxxon? Woot! (I was kinda hoping Dr. Wu was a foreshadowing to Radioactive Man or maybe a new take on Titanium Man or Crimson Dynamo, but sadly it is just some Chinese propoganda Bah!)

Oh and as one of those guys that has read all the comics. I gotta say, someone behind this movie has done the same. I mean really. There were so many visual easter eggs in this thing calling back to classic comic book panels or scenes that it is probably the densest Marvel movie for that sort of thing. I would have to go back and watch the movie again to even begin to spot them all, but as some examples, one that stands out is the one glove, one boot fight sequence, which harkens back to a really obscure 1 issue filler story in the late 80's during the "Silver Centurian" era. The seen of iron man dragging his suit through the snow and the scene of pepper holding the damaged helmet both call back to more recent Invincible Iron Man stories. It's just obvious that a huge amount of some of the visual setups and framing were inspired by various pieces of individual panel art and covers over the years. Wonderful.

I still wish we had seen at least 1 Beekeeper Suit damit!

Overall I thought it was a great movie, and probably one of the better comic movies that have been made. What plot holes there are, are more a matter of "Just accept it's a comic movie, don't think to much on it and don't worry too deeply about an explanation". The inconsistencies are more the same sort of ones that all of these fantasy adventure stories have. The same sorts of things that plague Star Wars, but don't stop it from being one of the all time greatest films. A few threads feel a little rushed or brushed aside at the end, and you wonder how or if they will be treated in later movies such as the Avengers (PTSD? Pepper?) But they seemed to be going for a point of closure should they seek to exercise it. And it was a good one. You leave the theater feeling more than satisfied. Not just for this movie, but for the entire Iron Man trilogy up to this point.

 

[person427]

Ugh. This guy I know was just complaining on Facebook that there are too many "plot holes" in this movie, most importantly "where are the other Avengers?" Maybe it's just him, but I'm worried things like this could turn away other fans who aren't used to the temporary team-ups of the comics.

Edit: But the more I think about it, he has a point. In one of the earlier Avenger comics, Iron Man went off and fought his own battle and was temporarily suspended from the team for not alerting them. It now seems weird that they're throwing the Avengers all back into their own storylines. Once the team formed, they stayed a team for the most part, with some members coming and going but for extended periods of time. This whole "get together for one fight, split up for a while, and rejoin for the next huge threat" thing sounds much more like the Defenders, who noted this method as being their biggest difference from the Avengers, thus making them a non-team. This is bothering me now.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Spoiler: This isn't for show. Spoilers, and rage, ahead.

WHAT??? You, the man arguing that Xmen would have been better with the yellow spandex, and praising the page-to-screen literalness of other works, aren't upset about this? How the flying kopf can you call this piezo de mierde good?? Most of it, sure, yeah, it was good, even building up to great at points, but then they hit the twist, which might have been fine, had they not spent all the time hyping us up for THE FUCKING MANDARIN, only to have the carpet pulled out from under our feet and be concussed by that stupid as all hell ending?? The whole first act setting up the Iron Legion, the second act being a nice powerless feature where he tries to ingratiate himself to the random kid (which was fine, they could do all kinds of stuff with that down the line or whatever) while dealing with his whole reconciliation of self by remembering that yeah, he is more than just the suit ("genius billionaire playboy philanthropist" comes directly to mind), and then, suddenly, it stops making sense. What are the Ten Rings, now, that the "Master" is revealed. What was he doing funding the terrorist organization that was buying the Stark Tech in the first film? What was the goal of that? Why does he blow up the Iron Legion, and stop being Iron Man? How now does he intend to reconcile future events, given that he just wasted his entire arsenal of awesome? Why do we get some schmuck who acquires abilities like the early Superman comics when the writers just went bananas with the titular character, at will, and only when it's convenient, instead of the classic genius artificially superpowered villain we were hoping and wanting that feels likes it's been pulling hidden strings since the first movie? Why are the annoying plot holes in this movie threatening to tear apart the love I've had for the phase one films, because the dense cluster of stupidity is threatening to encompass what was once stable ground, and oh hot saucy christ this is like TDKR all over again, causing it's stupidity and terribleness to infect the previous good films, quick I have to cut this off at the source by putting up a shield (pun not intended) between this TRAVESTY and the previous films. What, did someone see TDKR and think "Yeah, I gotta get me some of that terrible tripe, and quick!" but only had the ending to mess with, so they crammed all the crap in at the end to devalue as much of the film as they could?

What could have been a clever twist and fun to watch had it ended differently instead left it slipping on a banana peel straight into a garbage filled grave. A sequence of good, great, great, confusing but would have been fantastic if it had been handled better, great, ABSOLUTE GARBAGE THAT FOREVER STAINS WHEN YOU TOUCH IT does not leave one with an impression of "Well, that was pleasant". It leaves trying to burn off a distasteful splotch with industrial cleansers.

 

[piclemaniscool]

Saw it a couple hours ago. Let me start off by saying IMAX is entirely overrated. I don't know how it is in your local theater, but in mine the absolute only difference is that the seats are labelled so that everyone can be a pretentious asshole to each other by saying, "excuse me sir, you're in my seat." It's a goddamn movie theater, not an opera house.

Of course the biggest thing on my mind is what they did to the characters. Trying not to have too many **spoilers,** but just in case, **WARNING: spoilers.** In my opinion they did to the Mandarin in Iron Man 3 what they did to Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. By which I mean besides the name (and to an extent, the costume) the characters share no common ground. Does it work within the context of this movie? Yes, beautifully even. The problem I have with it is whether it works within the context of the universe. TDKR doesn't have to deal with the promise of a sequel, or having the characters match up with any other movies. Making a "Marvel Movie" becomes weaving a web collaboratively. You can't just decide to go a completely different direction and hope it will come out just as tightly knit. The movies were never exactly comic accurate, but that seemed to be because of the margin of error allowed when translating mediums. But I think they're losing sight of that. I think they pulled a lot of that stuff on purpose for both the shock value and to give themselves a name, rather than fulfilling their original goal of simply passing on the medium in a new form. But it falls kind of flat when you know there's only so far they can go before they get afraid of ruining continuity. Any feeling of loss is immediately disbanded since in the back of my mind I know anyone worth dying isn't "allowed" to die. This becomes especially apparent toward the end where they seem to just give up and go with the Die Hard formula for an ending. Although it helped a bit that they never took any scene in the movie too seriously.

TL;DR: It's not that they missed their AIM, I just think they're just starting to forget the definition of AIM.

 

[Winthrop]

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!

Spoiler

While it is never stated that he decided to use the perfected Extremis virus on himself, it is stated that he perfected it. A major plot point is that AIM wanted to get Tony involved so that he could fix the issues with Extremis as he helped solve some earlier problems while drunk. After the climactic fight, he mentions in passing that he succeeded in perfecting it so that Pepper would still be alright and not explode. Its more of a footnote than anything, but it is in the sentence immediately before the one where he mentions the shrapnel is removed which I believe lead many to assume that Tony had given himself the virus. My personal explanation was that medical technology has evolved quite a bit over the last 5 years or so and it isn't impossible that he could be considered operable now.

Regarding the Vice President and whether or not he is evil, I wouldn't say he was "evil" exactly but he was definitely treasonous and a villain. The most notable example of this is when Tony called him to warn him about the president and he completely ignored the call. Furthermore Killian mentions that his plan involved assassinating the president so the vice president would be put in charge and that his motivation for having the vice president in charge was that he could continue to do unethical human experimentation. Furthermore he is arrested at the end. That said I don't think he was evil as he clearly just wants to help his daughter. I feel bad for him, but he is unquestionably a villain. What I don't get is why The Mandarin was arrested considering he thought he was just filming a movie and cooperated with Tony and Rhodes once he realized he was actually doing wrong.

But to summarize the Vice President:
1. Actively ignores advice that will keep the president alive.
2. Knows the plans of the anti-US terrorist group.
3. Agrees to go along with the terrorist group.
4. Is okay with human experimentation.
5. Thinks the accidental explosions are acceptable collateral.
6. Diverts Rhodes to the Middle East and presumably helps stage his capture.
7. Comments that Rhodes is with the president (while knowing he isn't) so that Iron Man will not intervene.

 

[XDravond]

(Not sure I saw the same movie as MovieBob because I didn't get the same "yey great" so my thoughts)

Not a bad movie per see but well I were quite disappointed... The whole movie felt like they just tried to cram as much as possible in to it but not giving even a second to think about for example "why is the villain evil?"... But I guess that's just because "he's evil" and they don't want to explain it to the people whom haven't read the Iron Man comics because it would take to long... And they seem like they have run out of good jokes for Downey Jr, because they seemed a lot more lame than they used to...

However the action is great and really cool explosions, so ok watching but don't expect to much from story and the like...

And the ending is really clever since they could make more movies but don't have to and all would be fine anyway...


TLR Not great but watchable

 

[Silverspetz]

He calls them out for being bad...unless they're Marvel.

You know, except for the part where he just pointed out the rather serious flaws with Iron-Man 1 and 2 at the start of this review.

Very well, let's look at Captain America. Here's Bob's video for it. Now, right off the bat, he says he's tempted to call this the perfect movie. That right there should set off some warning bells that a critic can't find any fault with any movie,

Yes, and if you had actually listened at all beyond those words you would have heard the bit where he immediately tempers that statement by saying "at least as perfect of a Captain America movie I can conceive anyone having made". He is not calling it a perfect movie he is calling it a perfect CAPTAIN AMERICA movie. A subtle but important difference.

but let's dig deeper. There's no mention that the entire third act once Captain actually starts fighting the Nazis completely devolves into a series of rapid-fire montages (which is exactly how they manage to cram this into a "history-spanning epic" that covers the length of the war).

Except for the part where he outmaneuvers the guy with the flamethrower-armor, and the chase scene where he boards a gigantic plane about to take off from a jeep, and the midair scene where he fights the Nazis IN their bomber-planes. No, nothing but rapid-fire montages at all.

There's no criticism that Captain inexplicably has four random guys following him around now. I'm pretty sure they never even said their names, much less got anything remotely close to characterization for them. But Bob undoubtedly loves them, because, as Bob says in the review, he grew up reading about them, so he knows exactly who they are.

Ok, first of all it is not "inexplicable" that they follow him around. He saw them in action when he broke them out of that facility and later recruited them during the Bar-scene. Paying attention helps sometimes.

Second of all, as characters they are not important to the plot. They are just the background characters who help Cap out during his missions. Aside from Bucky none of them contribute very much to the plot of this movie so why would it be necessary to make a big deal out of them? Because they have distinctive looks and therefore you assume that they should be important? If they were all wearing generic soldier uniforms and were all American I doubt you would have even mentioned this as a problem because then you would have seen them for what they are, a group that acts as a plot-device of sorts, not important characters who need to be explored. In the comics these team-members are important and therefore they are explored there, but for this movie they are not. I thought you were the one who was against the comics bleeding into movies BTW. Guess that only applies when it gives you something to complain about.

But the biggest tell is his highest praise for the movie. In his words, it's a "lack of irony and cynicism". The movie is perfect because it doesn't make fun of his precious source material. In Bob's own words, it's so great because it doesn't try to have complex characters or subvert the source material in order to try to have depth. It's so great because it keeps exactly with the source material for flat, uninteresting characters. "An uncompromisingly good guy versus an evil with a capital 'e' guy." Normally, movies with flat, 1D characters get a word or too about how boring the characters are. But it's okay in this case because they're based on characters Bob likes.

Has it ever occurred to you that Bob simply doesn't agree with you that Cap and Skull are 1-dimensional? That he thinks it is a good thing that they don't treat the source material with irony because he thinks treating it with respect actually gives it all the depth it needs? The movie doesn't put Cap in the seemingly ridiculous costume because he is just so gosh-darn patriotic, they play it smart and come up with a reason for why it works. And that reason turns out to be the very same reason the original creator of the character designed him that way, to be a crowd-pleaser in an era where fighting for your country and old-school heroics were all the public cared about. I'd say that is plenty subversive without resorting to ironic mockery of the character and the way he dresses.

Cap is an all around good guy but that does not necessarily make him boring. "Good" has several dimension to it as well. He is a likable guy who inspires people to be their best, and Skull is a Nazi who truly believes himself to be the Ubermench. For this movie that is all they need because the movie knows how to do "pure good" and "pure evil" WELL and make it seem like something that could very well exist in the era which the movie takes place in. I think Bob made all of that pretty clear around 4:40 so maybe you should consider that simply not agreeing with you on whether or not a movie is good doesn't make someone biased. Bob has never been an advocate for fidelity to the source-material at all costs, especially not when it hurts the movie AS A MOVIE. A fact he has made clear repeatedly in both Escape to the Movies and his Intermissions. You can see a prime example of it in this weeks review in particular.

Still, I appreciate that you took the time to at least explain why you thought the movie Bob praised was bad.