Iron Man 3

[Iambaytor]

I actually liked Iron Man 2 more than Iron Man 1 and I totally don't get why I am the only one. But whatever, Shane Black is directing this, it will have a sense of humor. Unfortunately I imagine its too much to hope that the movie ends with Tony dropping the Mandarin into a helicopter blade and then dancing a jig.

[Reverend Jax]

If there will be a sense of humor in this movie, is it weird that all the trailers and TV spots have all be so serious?

[Mr. Hakujin]

There's always that smarmy air RDJ brings to his Tony Stark that makes him the comic relief. But I'm the opposite of Baytor, the action seems to be adequately covered. However, the dialogue in the trailers has been a bit cringe worthy.

 

"You're not a man. You're a maniac!

 

"This is good old-fashioned revenge."

Edited March 26, 2013 by Mr. Hakujin
A maniac for luh-uv.

[Iambaytor]

There wasn't much in the way of humor in the Avengers trailer either, but lo it was there.

[Reverend Jax]

Yes, there was. What the fuck are you talking about? All the Avengers trailers had tons of humor. There was the "genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist" line, the "I have an army" "we have a Hulk" line, the "I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster" line, the "I'm bringing the party to you" line, "I'm volatile, self-obsessed, and don't play well with others" line.... The overwhelming message of the Avengers trailers and commercials were "this movie is epic and fun." With all the IM3 trailers and commercials, the message is "epic and somber."

Edited March 26, 2013 by Reverend Jax

[Iambaytor]

I think they're just trying to emphasize the gravity of what's happening and how this isn't going to be something Tony can just repulsor blast his way out of. Besides, there's hints of the same tone, despite what happens when Air Force One gets a whole blown in it you can hear the cockiness in his voice when he says "okay" after Jarvis tells him he can only save four people.

[Mr. Hakujin]

There wasn't much in the way of humor in the Avengers trailer either, but lo it was there.

[Iambaytor]

First trailer

 

Two jokes, both of them just snarky comments by Stark being a cocky asshole (aka his character), they barely even work outside of the scenes they're set in.

 

Second trailer

 

Not a single joke

Edited March 27, 2013 by Iambaytor

[Mr. Hakujin]

Not a single joke

Agent Coulson around 1:10. Also the last line of the trailer--albeit a bad one.

[Iambaytor]

Wow, 3 bad jokes, what a laugh fest. Point being, they were rather somber affairs in comparison to the movies. The same can be said of Captain America and Thor (especially Thor) so I don't think the trailer is evocative of the movie as a whole in any way, shape, or form.

[Mr. Hakujin]

Point being, you wrote "not a single joke" and you were wrong. Again.

[Iambaytor]

A half-distorted "somebody needs a time out" isn't really a joke, which was why I didn't notice or acknowledge it the first time.

[Reverend Jax]

It doesn't matter if the jokes don't rise to the comedic level of your approval. The trailers don't even have to have a single joke for my point to be valid. My point is, the Avengers trailers don't make the movie seem like it's going to be a tragic, somber affair. I makes the move seem like it's going to be light in tone, despite being large in scale. You could have no jokes and achieve that same tone. All the IM3 stuff we've seen make it look dark in tone, without a single light moment. The story that the trailers have been showing indicate Tony is haunted from the beginning of the movie by what happened in New York (presumably he's talking about the event in Avengers). Everything is about how he can't sleep, he's worried about losing pepper, and from the Mandarian it's all about how he's going to be made to suffer.

Edited March 27, 2013 by Reverend Jax

[Mr. Hakujin]

A half-distorted "somebody needs a time out" isn't really a joke, which was why I didn't notice or acknowledge it the first time.

Is it really? Or is it more that you hate being right and can't stop yourself from being so very, very wrong?

 

 

 

[Keth]

I thought the latest trailer (Suit army/hulkbuster) did a fine job of showing that it won't be that somber. The way he takes control of the suits and everything seems to point into the direction of the same Stark we all know.

 

That's another thing too, we all know Tony Stark. We've been through 3 movies with him already, and Iron Man 3 isn't geared for newcomers of the series. I think, at least I'd like to think that the filmmakers know that we are familiar with the last 3 movies and aren't going into part 3 as first timer. We know what to expect, so they are showing us some different stuff I think.

[Reverend Jax]

That's what I'm hoping, I just don't think the trailers are giving us a lot of evidence that we'll be seeing the side of Tony Stark that was the best part of the last to IM movies and The Avengers.

[Mr. Hakujin]

I hope axels and Ryan are right. I'd really like an IM3 closer to Avengers in tone as far as the mix of humor and action. However, the trailers do seem to be putting out more of a Dark Knight Risesvibe in terms of tone. We all know trailers aren't always accurate, and I'm going to be there opening weekend either way. I'm just hoping for an entertaining film, and that's one thing I think we can all agree on that the trailers do seem to be showing.

[Reverend Jax]

Yeah, that sums up my sentiments. Marvel Studios are 6 for 6 right now in my book, so consider my ticket bought, but I would be shocked if this had the same tone as Avengers, or even Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (it seems Baytor is drawing most of his confidence in this movie from Shane Black being the director).

Edited March 27, 2013 by Reverend Jax

[alive she cried]

I actually liked Iron Man 2 more than Iron Man 1 and I totally don't get why I am the only one.

 

You're not, you and me against the world.

 

I'm Tony.

 

Also, I am the only one that thought Thor was pretty average?

[Mr. Hakujin]

Yeah, that sums up my sentiments. Marvel Studios are 6 for 6 right now in my book...

So you're counting the Norton Incredible Hulk as a win? Eh, it definitely wasn't a terrible film. But I'm not sure I'd put it on par w/ the other 5 Marvel Studio flicks. Then again, I'm one of the very few who thought Ang Lee's HULK was better.

 

Also, I am the only one that thought Thor was pretty average?

I'd put Thor above IM2 if I was listing the Marvel Studios films in order of awesomeness. For me, it was an expectations thing. I went in to the Thor film knowing very little about the character or his place in the Marvel U and was totally won over by the film--plot, pacing, performances hit on all cylinders for me. Incredible Hulk was a film I'd categorize more as "pretty average" in my book.

[Reverend Jax]

So you're counting the Norton Incredible Hulk as a win? Eh, it definitely wasn't a terrible film. But I'm not sure I'd put it on par w/ the other 5 Marvel Studio flicks. Then again, I'm one of the very few who thought Ang Lee's HULK was better.

It doesn't get a 10 out of 10, but as far as whether it gets a straight thumbs up or thumbs down, it's a thumbs up. It was worth the price of admission, so even if IM3 is the weakest of the IM series, I am still willing to pay for the ticket because I think it'll be worth the cost of the ticket.

[alive she cried]

First review of IM3 hits, and it's rave, very rave.

 

Iron Man 3, rIron Man 3, starring Robert Downey Jr, is exciting and in Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin we might have the smartest screen interpretation of a villain since Heath Ledger’s Joker.

 

 

 

Image 1 of 6

Robert Downey Jr in Iron Man 3. Photo: Film Stills

 

By Robbie Collin, Chief Film Critic

12:42PM BST 19 Apr 2013

27 Comments

 

Dir: Shane Black; Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rebecca Hall, Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany (voice), Jon Favreau. 12A cert, 130 min.

 

Here is a sentence that as recently as 12 months ago, I never expected to write: the superhero film craze has reached dramatic maturity. I can tell you’re sceptical, so cast your mind back to the summer of 2008, when cinema-goers first queued to see Iron Man.

 

The attraction, back then, was the chance to see the appurtenances of superheroism on screen: the Iron Mask; the Iron Suit; the Iron Arch-Foes being smelted to a purée. Nowadays people are still queueing, and in still greater numbers if last year’s £1billion global gross for Marvel Avengers Assemble is anything to go by, but beloved characters, not recognisable costumes, are increasingly the draw.

 

 

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In Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Batman’s famous scowl was off-screen more than on it, and likewise, for a significant portion of Iron Man 3, Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark is unmasked and mortal. His new Iron Man suit is a swarm of free-flying components that individually clunk into place on his body, so in some scenes he has, say, a super-powered left leg and right elbow, while the rest of him remains human, vulnerable, and visible.

 

That’s a great idea for a special effect, but it also means we never lose touch with the man behind the iron. Shane Black, the director, wrote the Lethal Weapon films that codified the buddy cop genre in the late 1980s, and he knows that a raised eyebrow or sideways glance can be more thrilling than any amount of digital whiz-bang.

Iron Man 3 is a direct sequel to last summer’s Avengers film, in which Tony and his super-colleagues feuded with Norse gods and aliens, destroying much of Manhattan in the process. These events have left him prone to panic attacks, and his worries are compounded by the arrival of two new super-villains on the scene. They are The Mandarin, the inscrutable figurehead of a global terrorist group played by Ben Kingsley (below), and Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian, a dashing geneticist with a special virus that turns his victims’ guts to lava.

 

 

These two characters have been culled from the comics, but Black and his co-writer Drew Pearce take wild liberties with both, and even viewers who have never once flicked through a graphic novel will be able to appreciate the lateral thinking at play here. In fact, Kingsley’s Mandarin might be the smartest screen interpretation of a villain since Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight (2008), although for very different reasons, and the moment his diabolical purpose is finally unveiled brings the house down.

 

In that scene, and elsewhere, Black has an instinctive feel for balancing action set-pieces against the passages of soap-opera that are required to make them matter. He also avoids the preeningly self-satisfied insider gags that made Iron Man 2 (2010) such a slog: instead, there are jokes about Downton Abbey and Croydon, and we can all laugh at those. The supporting cast get it, too. Don Cheadle, as Col. James Rhodes, the pilot of Iron Man’s official US military counterpart War Machine, channels the Lethal Weapon spirit, happily playing Murtaugh to Downey’s Riggs; while Gwyneth Paltrow, as Tony’s sweetheart Pepper Potts, may not have been this straightforwardly likeable in a decade.

 

_{Left to right: Drew Pearce, Robert Downey Jr, Don Cheadle, Rebecca Hall, Shane Black and Sir Ben Kingsley.}

 

You have to admire Disney and Marvel Studios’ gumption: with the Avengers franchise, of which this film is the seventh instalment, they have effectively brought back the matinee serial, and have found an enormous and appreciative audience for it. One hundred years of popular cinema has taken us from The Perils of Pauline to The Travails of Tony. Long may the juggernaut continue to rumble.

Edited April 20, 2013 by alive she cried

[Jables]

Well,

It was an excellent Shane Black movie, maybe a little more depth than any previous Iron Man movie. Piss funny, the Mandarin bit was stupid but I got the point of it(since they revealed and then had the mastervillian spell it out), it was just a complete waste of Ben Kingsley 'cause that voice of his was something.

 

 

ANd the post-credit

Was a complete fucking fizzler. Shane Black could do some amazing shit with Powers I think, superhero summer movies less so though

 

[The NZA]

curse of the 3rd comic film confirmed

[Jables]

I wouldn't call it a curse. This movie just really paved the way for a new kind of Marvel Superhero movie. Wright's Ant Man would fit side by side with Black's Iron Man.