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Iron Man 3 (spoilers)

PhDeac

PhDeac

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Keep spoilers here and save the superhero thread for non-spoilers and upcoming movies.
 
On my phone so real quick: I liked the movie but I thought a lot of the negatives are based around Guy Pierce's character. The horrible "lets fill in Stark in 45 seconds of expository interviews" was terrible. He lived thru being exploded in his suit but then a little missile kills him? All of his sidekicks giving the "evil smirk" (I hate the evil smirk, especially now we've seen Loki show how to play it right). The whole relationship Pearce had with the botanist was a strain. I'm honestly worried the marvel world won't be able to come close to topping Hiddlestone's Loki.
 
Well that's why it looks like they're using Loki for a 3rd time.

I thought it was very good. The strengths outweighed the weaknesses.

The villains have been the weakest part of the 3 Iron Man movies. Ben Kingsley was excellent as The Mandarin in those terrorist videos. Then they pulled the twist which wasn't too disappointing because Ben Kingsley was hilarious in those scenes.

Unfortunately, they had a "3rd movie" problem where they wasted potential plot lines/villains (Mandarin, A.I.M.) for no apparent reason. They could have just used Killian without connecting him to two promising future villains. The ending wrapped up the trilogy although we know he'll be back for Avengers 2 and possibly other movies. I'd be more worried if we didn't have 5 more Marvel movies coming in the next 30 months that don't even include Hulk 2.

The Extremis concept was good overall. I liked the lead henchman, the whole bomb mystery in TN and the kid, even badass Pepper at the end. The random thugs at the end were boring and Pierce could have been better. They did justify why he would do the exposition with the Bern scene, but it's cliche.

My biggest problem with Extremis is that I wasn't sure where the moral line was. Was it wrong because it didn't work and some subjects exploded or because they were trying to cheat their disabilities? Or both? It wasn't clear. It's hard to argue the latter because the whole concept of Captain America is the super soldier.

The biggest strength was the writing for Stark. That was just fantastic. His scenes with the kid were gold. They did the whole "the man or the machine" thing without being too obvious. They did a great job with the celebrity hero.

The armors did make for some ridiculous plot holes. Am I supposed to believe that none of the cameras saw Iron Man fly out of the water after Stark's home was attacked? That the 42 armor made it from a locked garage in TN to Miami in minutes? That all the armors made it from his basement in a few minutes? That leaping into armor wouldn't hurt like hell?
 
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Just saw it, quick thoughts now and I'll expand later. I really liked it, I think it's Marvel's best movie, though I don't really like any of the other Marvel movies. It appears Shane Black doesn't think too highly of them either, which is why I liked it so much. Black was the perfect filmmaker to take over the franchise, cause his irreverent/self-mocking humor fits in with Downey's portrayal of Stark perfectly. Most of it relies more on gunplay, which is Black's trademark, and there are even buddy cop aspects which was awesome. It was also more of a mystery/thriller in certain parts, which I quite enjoyed. Irreverent humor, ridiculous scenarios, an ingenious twist that is basically a big "fuck you" to the comic book fans who take this so seriously and will be sooooo pissed that a character like The Mandarin was wasted. If you're not going to go the Nolan route, which is take the "comic" aspect out and play everything on a realistic tone, then you should go the opposite route and just make fun of how ridiculous this all is. The other Marvel movies try to straddle that line, and just end up being boring. Black's approach was terrific, and definitely a breath of fresh air.
 
I liked the movie, but the last 30 minutes or so fell flat for me. I thought the Mandarin twist was great, but the rest of it post-capture was somewhat of a letdown.
 
WakeFanatic said:
Just saw it, quick thoughts now and I'll expand later. I really liked it, I think it's Marvel's best movie, though I don't really like any of the other Marvel movies. It appears Shane Black doesn't think too highly of them either, which is why I liked it so much. Black was the perfect filmmaker to take over the franchise, cause his irreverent/self-mocking humor fits in with Downey's portrayal of Stark perfectly. Most of it relies more on gunplay, which is Black's trademark, and there are even buddy cop aspects which was awesome. It was also more of a mystery/thriller in certain parts, which I quite enjoyed. Irreverent humor, ridiculous scenarios, an ingenious twist that is basically a big "fuck you" to the comic book fans who take this so seriously and will be sooooo pissed that a character like The Mandarin was wasted. If you're not going to go the Nolan route, which is take the "comic" aspect out and play everything on a realistic tone, then you should go the opposite route and just make fun of how ridiculous this all is. The other Marvel movies try to straddle that line, and just end up being boring. Black's approach was terrific, and definitely a breath of fresh air.
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Keep in mind that one of the main plot points is that the main character has anxiety attacks about being sucked into a wormhole.

Did anybody feel like you needed to have seen Avengers to follow this movie? This guy seems to think so and thinks it will hurt ticket sales.
http://www.hollywood.com/news/movie...-audiences-even-bother-with-the-marvel-movies

The only things you need to know from Avengers is that something crazy happened to him and that the dude post-credits is Bruce Banner. The first thing is covered and there is a flashback. That's it. Not sure what good there is in promoting the idea that someone needs to see every movie. My wife had only seen Iron Man 1 before Avengers and she enjoyed it.
 
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Lol that this movie was satire. Downey has always played this character with irreverance. This was a straight-up comic book movie that did contain a rather unexpected twist. One that I liked. I did have a moment of concern that they shat on ever being able to use Iron Man's (far and away) biggest enemy. However he would be complex to give a backstory to (that he's empowered by 10 alien rings) and even his name is risky to try to pull off as a straight-up villain today; he does seem dated. Extremis, on the other hand, is the hot new villain of the future.

I certainly give it a "Go see in a theater" rating. Below the first Iron Man but comfortably above #2.

Also, for 2 more days, comixology has some Iron Man comics on sale. The arc that introduced Extremis is simply outstanding, for both art and story. From the link to Iron Man on the main page, look for the series named "Iron Man" (not the one with "Invincible" in the title) and choose #1-6.

ETA: For the first time, I didn't think the payoff from the post-credit scene outweighed having to sit through very long credits. I would have been content seeing this as a deleted scene off the dvd in a few months. The fanboy in me was hoping to see a glimpse of Thanos' goings on.

Did anybody feel like you needed to have seen Avengers to follow this movie? This guy seems to think so and thinks it will hurt ticket sales.
http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies...-marvel-movies
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Hell no. I know someone like me is the villain of this guy's article, the lifelong Marvel fan that knows the nuances inside and out, but if someone feels they're in the dark because Tony is suffering PTSD from a "New York event" which is explained as an alien invasion during which Tony went through a portal to another dimension, then indeed, these movies are not for them.

I'm sure the creative teams between the comics and movies have at most a 1% overlap, but Marvel has been dealing with this for decades. Sometimes well, sometimes not so much. It is a guiding principle when writing a comic that a new reader should be able to pick that issue up and be able to follow the story. Again, that doesn't always work well. In the context of the movies though, this continuity is fairly simple. The one minute (max) dedicated to flashback was sufficient this time. A bigger problem would be for Marvel to cater to the article's author and his simple-minded friends and show 10+ minutes of flashback and exposition.

Eventually, and the movies are a looooong way away from this, the history and continuity trap the creative teams in a bind. They spend more time trying to fit in a story than coming up with a good story. DC's solution has been to nuke everything from orbit, I've actually lost track of how many times they've done this, 3 at the least. Marvel tends to just rewrite history that doesn't fit well. Take Iron Man for example, his first origin story had him captured by Vietnamese, then eventually updated to the first Gulf War then Afghanistan, all while maintaining key story arcs (e.g. alcoholism and Armor Wars) as part of his history.

Bottom line, it is a danger that a convoluted continuity could eventually adversely affect the box office of Marvel movies. They're not there yet and hopefully, Marvel has learned from their excesses of the 90s that they have to avoid it.
 
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Good answer. The comparison to Game of Thrones or any TV was ridiculous. I can think of several more trilogies that require more backstory than Iron Man.
 
I loved the direction of this movie. It was an Iron Man story through and through. I found myself thinking several times about how the writing and plot points just nail the character. It's just so obvious with these movies that Marvel has their fingerprints all over everything. I'm a little disappointed they wasted the Mandarin in the way they did, but I loved the way they handled Extremis (DeacHead is right, if you haven't read Extremis, it is excellent). With the first two so focused on the armor, I was really pleased with how this movie took a lot of the focus away from armor and focused on people instead. Everything felt perfectly balanced, between humor, action, emotion, and so on. It's not the monumental triumph, but no Marvel movie will be going forward because I think we've honestly come to expect this from Marvel. They tell great stories surrounding great characters. Honestly, it has to be a directors dream to work with Marvel...all you have to do is not screw it up. Strong characters, an engaging storyline, and a comfortable familiarity with this whole cinematic universe make this almost like sitting down to watch your favorite television show...you're just ready for the next chapter when the end credits roll.
 
I'm not really saying it's satire, just that Shane Black adds in a sardonic wit that wasn't there with the Favreau films. Black is certainly more aware of himself and the inherent stupidity of the movie he's making and the genre he's working within (the movie makes reference to it numerous times). People do know who Shane Black is right? Everything he's ever done has a self-mocking tone to it, this was no different.
 
Examples of these references?
 
People do know who Shane Black is right?
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Not me, I think IMDB was taken down and reserved for those studying Film Studies 305: Mastering becoming a pretentious film school pedant.

Also I'd love to see a link to an interview where the director even remotely implied "these movies are inherently stupid". Certainly not stupid enough that he wouldn't want to take a big paycheck. People do know what a big paycheck is right?
 
Think most of the analysis here so far has been pretty good. I'll give IM3 a B. Glad I saw it; had a good time. Ending underwhelmed.

The billion references to "The Avengers" were too much, it's true. I think it hurt the movie. I understand why they did it, but it got a little tiresome. Honestly, suspending disbelief that comic book heroes can work in and of themselves as well as within a larger group with a different scope like the Avengers is probably pretty low on the list of things people have to suspend disbelief about while watching a comic book movie.

And IM3 was maybe the most comic booky of all comic book movies so far. Seemed far less like a film with characters inspired by a comic book and more like a comic book brought to life on a movie screen, if that makes any sense. Marvel needs to break the cycle of upping the ante in every comic book character sequel. Clearly it was on their minds post-Avengers with IM3. I think it was good template for all post-origins Marvel movies in terms of preserving franchises.
 
Once you create a world in which gods exist, you have to explain why they can't help. I thought they did it very subtly. The early scene where Rhodey called Mandarin an American problem, not a superhero problem was good.
 
I think they must have made at least 20 reference to the Avengers. No matter how subtle they were (and some were not), eventually they compounded and no longer become subtle in total. They could have maybe made 10 references? 5? And have been fine.
 
DeacHead said:
Not me, I think IMDB was taken down and reserved for those studying Film Studies 305: Mastering becoming a pretentious film school pedant.

Also I'd love to see a link to an interview where the director even remotely implied "these movies are inherently stupid". Certainly not stupid enough that he wouldn't want to take a big paycheck. People do know what a big paycheck is right?
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Oh, I was going to answer your question, but then I just went on living my life.
 
The Avengers made $1.5B and was very well received. I don't anything wrong with making the connection. Small price to pay for quality cinema. They're still trying to move DVDs. God bless them.
 
Just got out: I give it a B
RDJ was great again, and the writing for his character was great, but the villians weren't good. Guy Pierce's Killian was unbelievable and never felt menacing or threatening. I thought The Mandarin character was completely wasted, though I appreciated the twist on a cliched foreign terrorist angle. Kingsley was also terrific in the Mandarin reveal scenes which saved that plot line from being a complete disappointment. I thought the film was too irreverent at times, too quickly skipping from people getting shot and killed to Stark making a sarcastic quip. I understand the need to maintain mood and pace, but it doesn't make sense to skim over the deaths on Air Force 1 and then go all out in life saving mode for the skydiving scene. I really liked Pepper saving Tony at the end and flipping around the damsel in distress angle but the extremis bad guys were completely underwritten at the climax.

I really wish that Rockwell's Hammer and Mickey Rourke's Vanko/whiplash had been given as good a screenplay because they were much better villains
 
Seems like one of the ways they are dealing with Iron Man's rogues gallery is to combine several of the villains into one. Killian was the head A.I.M, the Melter, and Killian rolled into one. In the last movie they combined Backlash and Crimson Dynamo to serve as the villian in that one. I think we'll see them follow the same template in the future especially since a lot his villains do the same kind of thing like Spy Master and The Ghost.

This movie also introduced Roxxon Oil and A.I.M. Both of those will probably surface in future movies.
 
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