Iron Man 3

[Anthony G Williams]

I was very impressed by the original Iron Man film which was an effective blend of an interesting plot, quirky humour, some good action scenes and a stand-out performance from Robert Downey Jnr. The sequel did not match that standard, as it put more emphasis on the violent action, scaling back the other elements. Sadly, Iron Man 3 is no improvement. The plot is so sketchy that it’s incomprehensible, consisting of a villain who has given himself and others some superpowers which are never explained, waging war on the USA for some reason which is never explained. The film seems to consist mostly of violent action scenes, following on in a rapid and wearying sequence. Even Downey seems to be mostly going through the motions. The one example of quirky humour concerned Trevor – I will say no more for fear of spoiling the one moment of fun in the film, and the only thing which made me smile. I came out of the cinema with a headache and a strong feeling that I’d just wasted two hours. Suffice to say that it made the new Star Trek film look really rather good, which takes some doing.

(An extract from my SFF blog: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.co.uk/)

 

[MontyCircus]

I agree with that, but I haven't enjoyed any of the Iron Man films. Almost liked the first one, maybe I'll re-watch it sometime, what put me off (the first Iron Man) that the big battle seemed to be ripped off from RoboCop 2.

Iron Man 2 I barely remember and you summed up the 3rd one quite well. Just a bunch of explosions and metal suits flying around. The critics (RottenTomatoes) and audience (CinemaScore) loved it...I guess they're all just hardcore Iron Man fans...

 

[J Riff]

Wattaya expect from a comic book aimed at teenagers of the sixties? Poisonally, getting very tired of the endless predictable comic book movies here.

 

[Harpo]

Wattaya expect from a comic book aimed at teenagers of the sixties? Poisonally, getting very tired of the endless predictable comic book movies here.

Yeah - what we want is Groo The Wanderer!

 

[biodroid]

I thought it was brilliant, a lot better than Iron Man 2, the plot was a bit jumpy but it was more down to earth, grounded in reality.

 

[Jonathan C]

I was very impressed by the original Iron Man film which was an effective blend of an interesting plot, quirky humour, some good action scenes and a stand-out performance from Robert Downey Jnr. The sequel did not match that standard, as it put more emphasis on the violent action, scaling back the other elements. Sadly, Iron Man 3 is no improvement. The plot is so sketchy that it’s incomprehensible, consisting of a villain who has given himself and others some superpowers which are never explained, waging war on the USA for some reason which is never explained. The film seems to consist mostly of violent action scenes, following on in a rapid and wearying sequence. Even Downey seems to be mostly going through the motions. The one example of quirky humour concerned Trevor – I will say no more for fear of spoiling the one moment of fun in the film, and the only thing which made me smile. I came out of the cinema with a headache and a strong feeling that I’d just wasted two hours. Suffice to say that it made the new Star Trek film look really rather good, which takes some doing.

(An extract from my SFF blog: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.co.uk/)

Both of those things are explained, and RDJ had a blast making this movie. And lots of action is what most fans wanted to see because the previous two had so little of it, which is less forgivable in the sequel (which, no, had if anything less violent action than Film 1). These are superhero movies, dammit!

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Both of those things are explained,

Depends on how you define "explained". A few words of gibberish seemed to cover an astonishing ability to raise body temperatures to colossal levels, plus renew damaged (or even blown completely apart) bodies. As far as the war against the USA was concerned, this seems to have been prompted by the fact that the hero once missed an appointment with the villain, many years before. Explanations? Hardly!

 

[Jonathan C]

Depends on how you define "explained". A few words of gibberish seemed to cover an astonishing ability to raise body temperatures to colossal levels, plus renew damaged (or even blown completely apart) bodies. As far as the war against the USA was concerned, this seems to have been prompted by the fact that the hero once missed an appointment with the villain, many years before. Explanations? Hardly!

Its a plot to monopolize the War on Terror by replacing the President and faking terrorist attacks to escalate the crisis. The new President will then start buying Extremis and make the bad guys the chief supplier to the US Defence sector. They will make a fortune and become basically richer and more powerful than what Tony was before the first movie. The fact that the bad guy has a grudge against Stark is just the icing on the cake- he only really tried to kill him because Tony publicly challenged the Mandarin and would prove to be a problem. Most of the "attacks" apart from the one against the President were actually Extremis failing- its not supposed to make people explode and they can't solve it without Tony's help (though the main villain is smart enough to know he won't, and decides just to sell a dangerous product- and of course he hates him), so they chose to frame these accidents as terrorist attacks to further their own goals.

As for the superpowers, that's about as good an explanation as any of the other superpowers in any other movie. They don't need much explanation- sometimes its probably better if they don't explain it at all.

 

[C Of K]

I didn't much like this movie either. The Mandarin was turning out to be quite the
interesting bad guy until about half way through the film. I won't spoil anything, but in
the second half of the film there were a few twists that flipped the film on its head.

I loved the previous Iron Man films. They had great action and great humor. This one had neither.
It did have fast moving action, but I couldn't get into it for some reason. I imagine this will be the last
one, which disappoints me, because I hate it when a series i enjoy ends badly.

 

[biodroid]

Anthony G, dont you think you are dissecting the movie too much? Surely this will ruin your enjoyment of the movie. There is no such thing as a perfect movie, but imagine if we have to tear apart each movie because of this and that, what would be the point. There are a couple of guys at my work who said that it wasnt a typical Iron Man movie, and they didnt enjoy it, but isnt that what we really wanted? Something different? I just enjoy the movie for what it is, not for how the plot jumps or how silly it is.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Anthony G, dont you think you are dissecting the movie too much? Surely this will ruin your enjoyment of the movie.

It's actually the other way round. I didn't enjoy the movie as I watched it, and only afterwards analysed why I didn't.

If I really like something, I can forgive it a lot of faults, but I simply didn't like this one.

 

[biodroid]

Anthony G, should we really be sweating the small things for missing the larger picture? Just saying, not attacking you or your opinion i have gotten past the stage of picking on the little things, but I admit there are really atrocious movies that really are bad. For one I couldnt care if the new Star Trek is not the Gene Roddenberry style everyone expected, but then again it is almost fifty years of taste and style development, and society changes. We expect more than the ordinary, we want big explosions, gittier stories, more vengeful characters willing to sacrifice their own grandmothers for the greater good, well not really, but you know what I mean. Admittedly the lastest Iron Man was quite different from the typical Jon Favreau versions, at least it wasnt stale like the second one.

 

[Grimward]

I just saw it last night. Have to admit it took me a while to put together Maya and Aldritch together mentally, and I didn't finish working thru things until after the movie was over, but I'm not as bothered by that as I was. Was disappointed in the Mandarin, but only because I (nostalgia admitted here!) remember the original character from the comic book; this movie's take on him was an interesting, current-day twist. I think Downey absolutely revels in playing this role, and my hat's off to the genius who cast him in the first place. All together, I'd give it 4 and a half stars out of 5.

 

[AMB]

I thoroughly enjoyed it. It did actually make reasonable sense within itself and the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe (and I actually went looking to find fault), and had a reasonable mix of action and slow moments. I also love the way it dealt with how the end of the Avengers movie affected Tony. There was a lot of character development going on between the action scenes, and a good amount of screen time was given to Tony's relationships with the people around him (Happy, Pepper and Rhodey).

There were a few things I wasn't sure of as the film progressed, but most of them were wrapped up to my satisfaction at the end of it. And while the Mandarin's storyline was disappointing for me personally, there is just enough ambiguity in the way it was presented that leaves things open for something better for the character. Probably won't happen, but at least there is room for me to pretend. (In other words, I can happily reject the premise without pretending that part of the storyline didn't exist.)

Stayed to the end of the credits, which I thought was well worth it.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

Anthony G, should we really be sweating the small things for missing the larger picture?

The bigger picture is - I didn't enjoy it!

For one I couldnt care if the new Star Trek is not the Gene Roddenberry style everyone expected, but then again it is almost fifty years of taste and style development, and society changes. We expect more than the ordinary, we want big explosions, gittier stories, more vengeful characters willing to sacrifice their own grandmothers for the greater good, well not really, but you know what I mean. Admittedly the lastest Iron Man was quite different from the typical Jon Favreau versions, at least it wasnt stale like the second one.

Actually I thought that the new Star Trek movie was too retro in style, a step backwards from the excellent TNG series and films which IMO are far more intelligent, thoughtful and mature. I have no objection to spectacular action scenes, but the emphasis on putting in so many of them, and on very simplistic good-or-bad characters, is just rather juvenile.

 

[finbaa]

The one thing i hated was that he didn't use the extra suits at the beginning.. it made no sense. And for everyone saying what do you expect? I expected something as good as the first film