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| I'm too lazy to download an Iron Man 3 pic |
I know, I'm way behind on my "summer" movie watching. What with the hassle of moving to a new apartment this month, I haven't had a lot of time devoted to watching movies. But Memorial Day I had a little free time at last and finally went.
Anyway, to say the 3rd installment of the Iron Man series is better than the second wouldn't be saying much. The second wasn't a terrible movie, but it wasn't that good either. Other than Scarlett Johannson running around in a tight-fitting black jumpsuit, I'd be hard-pressed to remember anything from that movie. There were some drones flying around, Stark and Rhodes put their beams together to blow up Mickey Rourke and there you go, cue the Avengers cookie scene!
The 3rd one nobly tries to add in character conflict as Stark battles PTSD from what happened in "The Avengers", but I still didn't end up loving it. It seemed too formulaic to me. I had mostly figured out the plot twist involving the Mandarin long in advance. I thought he was some kind of hologram, but in actuality it was far lower tech than that. When Pepper "dies" I knew she wasn't dead because she'd been injected with that Extremis stuff. So really I sat around for most of the movie waiting for relatively obvious things to happen.
This same thing happened when I watched "Hellboy 2" whenever that came out. I had pretty much figured out the whole movie in the prologue, so I just sat there waiting for the idiot heroes to figure things out. That makes it largely unsatisfying.
Of course I didn't watch this in 3D and really I can't see how it would be much improved by watching it in that format. I guess when all the Iron Man suits are flying around that might be cool, but since most of the movie focuses on Stark out of the suit, it doesn't really seem like it would make much difference.
Something that's cropped up since "The Avengers" is when the shit hits the fan, I wonder why Nick Fury doesn't show up with that floating aircraft carrier of his. Why doesn't Stark call on his buddy the Hulk or Captain America to help him out? Actually those Extremis guys seem like better enemies for Captain America since he was part of a super-soldier program and so were they.
And if it was so easy for Tony to get the shrapnel out of his heart, why didn't he do that in the last movie when that magnet in his chest was killing him? Actually, I thought the thing in his chest powered the Iron Man suits, so why can't he use it to power up the Mark 42 when it gets trashed?
When I pick at a movie like this, it means I didn't really like it that much. By contrast a movie like "The Dark Knight" or "The Dark Knight Rises" I'll ignore any potential nitpicks and defend to the death those other people point out.
Overall I'd give it 3/4 stars, though I think my own personal feeling was more like 2.5/4 stars.
Tomorrow Box Office Blitz continues!
6 comments:
I agree.
Too bad you didn't enjoy it Pat, but I can't disagree with your points. I hope you're enjoying your new place.
Okay, fine. You didn't like it. Big surprise... LOL. I found the main points of the movie predictable as well, but I love Tony Stark's character so I could probably watch him paint a house for two hours and be happy. On to the next, which is of course, Man Of Steel. Perhaps you will find less to criticize being that Chris Nolan is involved. My only nitpick for The Dark Knight, etc. is that Christian Bale's Batman voice is stupid. There, I said it. I hope we can still be friends.
Like you, I liked III much better than II. This was a good addition to the franchise even though most action flicks have credibility issues. But heck, this guy is flying around in an iron suit so I guess we should cut him some slack. But iron? Really? Maybe his suit should be upgraded to transparent aluminum.
I didn't mind the voice in short bursts, but in long soliloquies it got annoying.
I liked the movie. I wasn't crazy about number 2, either. So I was worried that this one would be like that. But I thought they found a new sort of storyline -- Tony Stark has to remember what made him great in the first place. Not the SUIT, but his ability to invent, and rely on himself and his wits.
That message was somewhat undermined when he was saved by a supercomputer managing to get all his robot suits out of storage and control them, but I guess since he invented Jarvis, too, that's okay.
Some of the plot twists were choreographed, I guess, but it was still an enjoyable movie.
I saw it in 3D. I do that mostly for Sweetie, as my poor eyesight makes 3D almost impossible for me to actually realize.
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