MOVIE REVIEW: Iron Man 3

The surprise success of 2008's Iron Man was the beginning of a phenomenon that was strong enough to engulf even the most skeptical comic book fan.  Last year's The Avengers solidified what Iron Man began 4 years prior to its release.  Now with the first arc of Marvel's cinematic universe in the history books, we are now kicking off the next arc with the third installment of the Iron Man series.

Even before The Avengers was released, fans knew that a third Iron Man was coming.  Fans also knew that Jon Favearu, the director of the first two installments, was stepping from behind the camera and allowing Shane Black to take the lead.  I was not quite sure whether the move was voluntary or whether Marvel/Disney preferred the move.  Nevertheless, I was initially concerned that the quality of the franchise would suffer after the exceptional job done on the first Iron Man.  Once I saw the disappointing Iron Man 2, though, I thought the change could do the franchise some good.  Shane Black has a long background with buddy movies and witty banter, so it seemed that he would be good at bringing out the Robert Downey, Jr. that we love either with or without the armor.  Perhaps Shane Black should have directed the second one, for the movie needed some better banter between Tony and Rhodey, but I guess was not part of the plan at the time.  Well, Shane has the reigns now, and while his crack at Tony Stark's alter ego is far from perfect, he ends up succeeding more than he fails.

The best thing that Shane Black realized is that when you have Robert Downey, Jr. playing Tony Stark, you just let him loose and let magic happen.  Once again, Downey, Jr. nails the character and expands it to show even more of his vulnerability, fears, and shortcomings.  You see him suffer from post-Avengers PTSD, his desire to protect his loved ones, his focus on revenge - all mixed in with hilarious one-liners that at least get a slight chuckle.  Of all the superheroes out there in the cinematic universe, Tony Stark is the only one that you want to see WITHOUT his superhero abilities, and Shane Black provides plenty of Tony in this movie.   Even though it is clearly Tony's show, all the supporting cast gets a chance to shine as well.  Ben Kingsley's portrayal of The Mandarin especially stands out, for his performance as Iron Man's nemesis is the most engaging villain portrayal since Heath Ledger's Joker.  The movie takes a liberal approach to his character's origins as well as fellow villains Advance Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.), but overall,  they do not lessen their appeal in the movie.

The main gripes I have with the movie are threefold.  For one, the plot twist at the end was not that surprising in itself, but it was surprising how it left you more disappointed and less shocked.  I will not reveal the plot twist to not spoil the movie for some, but you end up feeling a little unsatisfied by the time you arrive at it.  In addition, while the majority of the movie had good pacing and character development, the all out finale between the enemy and Iron Man's legion of armors was slightly overdone.  It was cool seeing all the armors in action (Hulk-Buster armor!!!), but some of the sequences, especially with Rhodey springing into action to save the President, was too ridiculous to ignore.  Furthermore, even though it is clearly Iron Man's party, I expected some other characters to stop by and say hello during the movie.  At the very least, where was SHIELD when all the chaos and destruction was going down?  Maybe we will get the answer in future offerings from Marvel.

Overall, Iron Man 3 succeeds in wetting our appetites for more Marvel action.  If the subtle hints in the movie are not figments of my imagination, then I am excited to see what happens next.  Marvel has yet to let me down, so my hopes are high.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Avengers

I would like to start this review by being up-front about something. In the pathetic, niche, world of comic book dorkdom, I am what is known as a “DC Elitist”. It means I favor the world that DC Comics has created over other comic companies such as Marvel, Image, and Dark Horse. Not only that, but I generally cast disparaging remarks upon those companies and their fans, waving a dismissive hand and making “pfft” noises when they try to argue me over to their side. It means that I have a huge bias against Marvel and their movies.

Okay, that’s not entirely fair. Marvel has had pretty great success with their movies while DC (excluding the Batman franchise) has fallen flat. Not to mention, DC has really pissed me off recently with their whole “let’s reboot the DC Universe and start over from scratch, then make something new and modern and innovative and really go the extra mile and . . . oh, wait, it’s still the same garbage we’ve always put out” stupid venture. And then they come along a few months later and announce that they’re making a PREQUEL to Watchmen. This is the worst idea of all worst ideas! In fact, upon hearing this, I stood up and vocally renounced my status of “DC Elitist” and disavowed any association with them (post reboot). But I digress.

I actually went in to The Avengers with high hopes, which nowadays is a dangerous thing to do. My hopes lay squarely on Joss Whedon, writer, director, and comic book fan. He handles ensemble casts well, as seen in previous ventures such as Firefly and Hanging with Mr. Cooper (Okay, I made that last one up. Not the show itself, unfortunately, just the fact that Joss Whedon created it). And he really is a fan of the source, not like some directors named Michael Bay.

So, I was surprised to find out that I thought the film was good after it was over. I have this inner contrarian which assumes that anything popular must be garbage, so it makes me nervous when something I’m interested in becomes super popular. But I couldn’t find anything particularly wrong with the film.

You may have noticed that this review has really explained nothing about the movie and that’s because there is really nothing to explain. We’ve seen (most) of the lead-in movies to this. There’s no origin story. A bunch of superheroes are brought together, they fight with each other and then work as a team to bring down the bad guy at the end. It’s all very predictable, and yet also very gratifying.

There are a couple of elements that make this movie as good as it is. Firstly, the threat that they counter is worthy of the team-up. In so many Marvel movies, the villain is usually just an evil derivative of the hero. In the first Iron Man, the villain was just a bigger Iron Man. In Iron Man 2, the villain was just a bunch of robot Iron Men, and the hero needed help from his buddy who was also an Iron Man, called War Machine, only way cooler (which is a major flaw with that movie, amongst other things). In the Incredible Hulk, the villain was the Abomination, which was basically just a big white Incredible Hulk. Though Abomination was played by Tim Roth, which is the only good quality of that otherwise horrible movie. In Captain America, the villain was Nazi Elrond. The point is that those villains were weak, and Avengers gets it right by having Loki as the main antagonist, and then follows him up with an invading alien army. Loki is a good villain because he’s not completely evil, he has weaknesses and doubts and major insecurity. In the end I felt kind of bad for him. The invading alien race is basically just fodder for the Avengers to slap around, and that’s fine, because it lets the heroes have lots of screen time doing what they do best and doing what we want to watch them do.

The second reason why this movie works well is in the way they handle the Hulk. His past two movies have been lame, boredom factories. Hulk works exponentially better in a team environment. Bruce Banner makes the other team members nervous, especially when he starts to get irritated. He’s a bomb ready to blow at any moment, and when he does he’ll take out everything and everyone around him, friend or foe, it doesn’t matter. Everyone knows this, including Banner, and it is used to great effect in creating tension. He’s kind of scary in this movie, and he should be.

I want to see this movie again, which is pretty rare. As I’m sitting here writing this “review”, I keep thinking on certain moments that I’d like to see again. It’s got excellent dialog and interactions. It’s written like a comic book. Every line is important. There is only so much space available to get the story across. There’s little room for filler or fluff. It’s lean and focused and entertaining. That’s more than I can say for most recent movies I’ve watched.

MOVIE REVIEW: Looper

Looper is like film noir without the “noir”. And also there’s time travel.

If you haven’t figured out the basic premise from the trailer, it goes like this: Time travel is discovered in the future and immediately banned. Anti-crime techniques have made it such that mobsters have difficulty disposing of bodies in their time, so they send targets in need of disposal back to the present where Joseph Gordon-Levitt shoots them in the chest with a blunderbuss while wearing a weird looking Bruce Willis mask.

The premise is pretty cool and the ideas get cooler. Eventually, the present day assassin will be sent his future self to off which will “close the loop” and wrap up all the possible crime related loose ends and time travel paradoxes in a nice little package.

It’s all very clean and efficient until Old Joseph Gordon-Willis shows up and meets Young Joseph Gordon-Willis face to face. Old Joe escapes which causes plot problems for Young Joe. Later, they meet up in a diner where the “My Future Self and Me” theme song from South Park immediately pops into your head. Young Joe is screwing up Old Joe’s memories of his wife by taking actions that change the course of his own history and Old Joe doesn’t like that very much so he tells his younger self to quit it. Young Joe is like, “Screw you, Old Joe! Now I’m going to go out of my way to screw up your past just to be a dick!”

Oh, and also there’s a subplot about a future bad guy causing problems for the mob and Old Joe is trying to hunt down and kill the present day child version of said villain.

It’d be no fun to spoil things for you. It’s a clever film which handles the potential paradoxes well (by mostly not talking about them) and it wraps up in a satisfying, but predictable way. It will appeal to sci-fi fans and remains grounded enough to entertain and not confuse the more feeble-minded. Just be prepared for that weird looking face! Man, was it distracting…