Iron Man 3

So….the summer kicks off with the latest installment of “Iron Man.” The first 2 were HUGE blockbusters, “The Avengers” last summer was the biggest money maker of the year AND my second favorite movie of 2012. So this one had a lot on its shoulders. And try as he might, Robert Downey Jr’s snark and whiplash dialogue delivery can’t rescue “3” mostly because of such a poor script that lost me a little over a half way in.

WHAT YOU THINK THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT: An international terrorist known as “The Mandarin” (Ben Kingsley) is after Iron Man and attacks him at his home, causing Tony Stark to flip out and demand revenge against this new arch-rival.

SPOILER ALERT!!! (Kind Of)

WHAT THIS MOVIE IS REALLY ABOUT: Not surprising, this IS NOT the plot! It starts out that way but then veers off wildly in a totally different direction that wasn’t really surprising to me considering how many movies are doing that these days. It’s the ol’ “Bait & Switch” move where the villain isn’t really the villain and the hero is left backtracking, trying to make sense of what has happened. It was used successfully in “Batman Begins” with the Ra’s Al Ghul character, then used more unsuccessfully again in “The Dark Knight Rises” with Bane and Miranda. It’s a tried and true way to extend a movie to 2 hours and director Shane Black does this even less credit by making it a farce instead of attempting to make it a more serious threat. Let me be perfectly clear…when this happens it sucked me completely out of this movie. I HATED it in “Dark Knight Rises” and I hate it even more in this movie. I’m over this plot switch technique (see my review of “Dark Knight Rises” here) so when it happens AGAIN in this movie? Ugh. I almost wanted to walk out.

SPOILER ALERT OVER

So now that THAT is over with…what were my likes and dislikes? Well…what I liked first…

Robert Downey, Jr. He makes this movie somewhat bearable because, as a super hero we’ve grown to love, we WANT to see him win and he adds a little bit of a psychological edge to Tony in this one as he grapples internally with last summer’s alien attack.

Tony Stark befriends a little boy and has great exchanges with him. Despite the fact that it’s highly unlikely that this would happen, I found it to be an entertaining way to bring Stark down to earth a little bit and the little boy, played by Ty Simpkins, is pretty good in this role.

Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s not just window dressing and, even though I didn’t like the ending, I still enjoyed her pluck with the Pepper character.

Aaaaaand that’s about it.

What I DIDN’T like? SPOILER ALERT…again.

Don Cheadle as “Iron Patriot” was a COMPLETELY wasted character. First he gets captured and allows his suit to be taken by the REAL bad guy. He’s then taken prisoner but somehow magically escapes (which is NEVER addressed how he got out) and then he is basically there in the end to bounce snappy dialogue around with Stark as they’re facing off against hundreds of bad guys…WITHOUT their armor! What a wasted character.

The Mandarin. He’s a joke. Literally.

Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian. The “mad scientist as Frankenstein” thing has been done to death. And the idea of a race of “super humans” that can regenerate limbs has been done with “X-Men.” Why bother with it in THIS film unless you’re gonna tie them in somehow?

SPOILER ALERT OVER!

But the most important thing missing from this “Iron Man?” Jon Favreau. As the director of the previous two films, the Iron Man has his share of demons but in the end, he’s there to be an ass-kicking super hero with cool gadgets and a little bit of wit and a lot of confidence. In this installment, Iron Man becomes a secondary character to the demons in his own head (the debacle in New York City, keeping Pepper safe, the destruction of his home). There’s too much going on in this film and with the added plot deficiencies, I felt like it ran off the rails pretty much by the start of the second half of it. That being said, I will still recommend it as a matinee on a blustery day because truthfully…if you’re going to see it…you should see it on the big screen. Your home television just won’t do it justice…especially the grand finale which includes an entire army of Iron Men that seemed a little over-the-top to me but I’m sure everyone else is gonna LOVE it!

Overall Rating: C

Oh relax…you KNOW it’s gonna make a gazillion dollars…

Contagion

I have to admit, few movie topics get me geeked up like “end of the world” virus movies (with the mother of them all being “28 Days Later”). So when I see a flick that not only contains that theme but also features a bevy of Hollywood big-hitters I have to get excited! Until…I see the PG-13 rating. Here’s the thing about PG-13 films…they do not make decent end of the world movies with a PG-13 rating. This is pretty much a standard that has been set ever since the rating came around in 1984. When the end of the world happens, whether it happens virally or by alien attack or by a zombie apocalypse or by the rapture, it ain’t gonna be pretty. Human instinct is survival and, as a race, we have a tendency to get pretty ugly when the whole world goes to hell in a handbasket. So in this film, what starts out promisingly enough turns midway through the film and my brother and I both agree that the turn it takes is the wrong one.

The movie starts out with a woman returning from Hong Kong with what appears to be a cold. But quickly she takes a turn for the worse and dies a shocking death. Along the way, she passes it to several others who have come in contact with her, including her son, and the virus is soon on its way to becoming global. As people start dying in various spots all over the world, the Center For Disease Control is put into a action and works double time trying to find a drug that can kill it. Of course that kind of science takes time and while the process gets underway, the world is in a state of panic. Pharmacies and grocery stores are looted, people start fighting for food and provisions and everything starts to shut down.

Not a bad start, right? But then the movie changes and instead of taking it one step farther into the hysteria, it backs off and instead of focusing on human nature, it focuses on the science and the defeat of the germ. Why Steven Soderbergh went this direction, I have no idea. It takes the movie to standard “made for television” fare instead of full blown “Dawn of the Dead” type of chaos and it just sort of sits there on the screen. We never believe that the end could be near and it all becomes very lazy as far as the outcome is concerned which is too bad because there are some decent performances that are totally wasted in this movie.

Of all the people involved, I would have to say Laurence Fishbourne gets the bulk of the screen time as he leads a team against the germ. His Dr. Ellis Cheever is the primary scientist at the CDC and he chews up many scenes talking about the effects of the germ and how it could be the end of our existence. Jude Law gets a juicy roles as a independent internet blogger who claims the government and the pharmaceutical companies are in bed together, creating a hysteria about the germ when the cure is available. Beyond those 2, there are a slew of great actors who make appearances (such as Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, & Elliot Gould) but whose roles are so short that they are here and gone in minutes.

What does this all boil down to? Well…it’s like the film is 2 parts. The first half is pretty damn good stuff and probably one of the better beginnings to a film such as this that I’ve ever seen. It zips along at a good pace, telling the story without making it overly complicated. But then part 2 happens and it drops off quickly, never really making strides to become a great look at human nature under stress. Instead it becomes a unfulfilled promise of a movie that could have been great. Instead it’s average at best and with the best part happening early in the film, it takes away all the positive things that I could have written about it and instead earns a…

Overall Rating: C-

10-second review: Promising idea turns south as Steven Soderbergh takes a lot of talent and does very little with it. This very easily could have been a 5-part mini series on network television. Don’t waste your money…wait to see it on TBS in the near future.

Iron Man

It’s the first official blockbuster of the summer season, and it’s based upon a supercool superhero from Marvel comics. It stars Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges, so it definately has star power. It’s got a running time of 2 hours. It’s…well…it’s the first in what will probably be a series. So what does that tell you?

There’s a lot of setup involved in this one.

Just like all of the other superhero movies, you need to know how they became the hero that they are. So the first hour is all about that. Then you get some action. And then you get a villain. And then you get the setup for the next movie. Iron Man is no different. Except for one thing…Robert Downey Jr.

This guy IS Tony Stark. He was made to play this role and is cast perfectly. He is believable because much of his regular life is like Starks’. He’s a playboy with millions, he gets all the girls and is known worldwide. He’s got a quick wit, a huge ego and a lot of talent to spare. If that doesn’t peg Downey Jr. then I don’t know what does! He was born to play this role and he succeeds extraordinarily!

But the rest of the cast, as previously stated, is just as talented, and how Marvel managed to recruit not just one Oscar winner (Paltrow), but 3 others who have been nominated for Oscars is beyond me. And to star in a superhero action movie! That is definately an amazing achievement on Marvels’ part. I don’t know how much each of them made off this movie, but it’s gotta be a huge payday!

Anyway, the movie is pretty cool. Watching Downey get used to his supersuit is the best part. A couple of actions scenes (there are really only 3) are pretty understated. Overall I felt like they didn’t pack as much action into it as they could have, but I imagine the next one is gonna be a monster of all action films!

So my review of Iron Man goes like this: Good film, the setup is over. Next time, it better rock from the beginning to the end ’cause this one has got all kinds of potential! No more Fantastic Fours! I want more Batmans!

I give it a strong B…with a lot going for the sequal!