Iron MacGyver 3

It that time of year folks! I can smell the popcorn, see the special effects and hear the groans of disgruntled fans. Yes sir, it is summer movie season and I couldn't be more excited. What we have in May is three consecutive weeks of some of the summers most anticipated movie. The follow-up to the record smashing performance of The Avengers, Iron Man 3. The ever delayed classic, The Great Gatsby. And the ever elusive, long awaited sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness. The first three weeks of May could be pure heaven or  pure disappointment, and we are not starting off so hot. This years summer reviews is kicked off with Iron Man 3. Here we go.

WARNING SPOILERS BELOW THIS LINE

Let me start out saying that there is no way that this movie can get a FULLY objective view from me. I read comic books, I analyze the comic book genre to a maybe extreme extent, and worst of all, I got spoiled. Reading some articles online, I accidentally read a MAJOR, MAJOR plot point of the movie, but we'll get to that later. So I recognize now that I cannot give this movie a completely fair shake. But on with the show!

Like 90's RDJ snap

This movie gave us the best picture of Tony Stark that we have ever gotten. Every aspect of his personality is showcased in this film and that is where the strongest moments of the film bud from. In the movie, Iron Man is under pressure by a new terrorist threat in the form of The Mandarin. A shady figure who is bombing people left and right, and challenging people to stop him. He is a mastermind, he hijacks America's broadcasting networks to show his bone chilling "lessons" in real time. Colonel James Rhodes, AKA War Machine AKA Iron Patriot is just awaiting orders to go after him. Meanwhile, Tony Stark is competing for the attention of Pepper Potts from the charming, handsome Aldrich Killian, played to perfection by Guy Pearce. Tony is obsessed with perfecting the Iron Man armor and is already up to the Mark 42  On top of all that, Tony is having anxiety attacks from his experiences in New York during the events of The Avengers. All this is weighing down heavily on him and it only takes a little bit for him to snap.

Eventually the Chinese Theatre is bombed by The Mandarin, and Happy Hogan, Tony's ex-bodyguard is caught in the blast. After this Tony personally challenges The Mandarin and even gives him his home address.  Stark goes home and starts to unravel the details behind The Mandarin bombings. He figures out that there are no bombs being used but he isn't sure how the explosions are being caused. Enter Maya Hansen, the brilliant inventor of the Extremis Virus, and one of Tony's old flames. When she arrives, so do the Mandarin's men. Tony's house is attacked and he only has the prototype Mark 42 to save him. Maya and Pepper barely escape and Tony is presumed dead. 

In reality, Tony's armor saved him and Jarvis, the best character of the whole movie sends hom on a flight pattern to a bomb sight that matched the one of the Chinese Theater. Then Tony walks around with the armor. We get some cool snow shots and he eventually finds a cabin. In looks all well and good but there's one catch. There is a child actor in it!

These always work out well!

Extremis Victim #1

So, Tony sets up shop in there so he can try and repair his heavily damaged Mark 42. While he's trying to repair it, he's also investigating the bomb sight. He soon gets a file from one of the victims mom or something. This part of the movie goes by pretty fast, because there's no explosions or anything so the director wouldn't want us to get bored. This is when the movie starts to get great. Tony figures out that the "victim" of the bombing was actually the bomb and Extremis, the virus developed by Maya Hansen, is being weaponized and used to make killing machine who glow ORANGE! 

Tony of course gets attacked by the Orange Man Group. But oh no! He doesn't have his armor! Whatever is he to do? You know what he does, he man's up, show the audience that the man makes the suit and not the other way around by taking out the Orange Assassins with nothing but some dog tags and some kitchen appliances. This started the best part of the whole film, which was Tony Stark being a genius and not relying on his suit. He tracks the Mandarins broadcast signal with Rhodey's help and sets out to take him down,  suitless. Tony goes to a hardware store and pretty much just acts like the bad-a he his and makes weapons out of household items. He storms the Mandarin's villa and takes out all these guards with nothing but a nail gun, a taser, and like a hot iron on a glove or something... I don't know but it was awesome. Then IT happens. 

Tony has taken out the guards, the suspense music starts, he rounds a corner and sees an empty bed. He raises a gun and pulls the sheets back and who is it? Thats right! It's hookers... Wait? What? Then THE line happens, and the snowball effect takes hold of this movie and virtually slaps Iron Man's arch-nemesis in the face. A toilet flushes, The Mandarin appears and says "I wouldn't go in there for at least 15 minutes." 

Yep. Let me say that again. The Mandarin emerges, the villain that has been teased since Iron Man 1, Iron Man's most intimidating foe, steps out of a bathroom and makes a fart joke.

Your team mates are ashamed of your movie, Tony.

Sigh...The Mandarin is actually an actor named Trevor, who is British, and addicted to drugs, and is pretty much used for 12 year old potty humor. And he was hired by ALDRICH KILLIAN! Oh, everyone? Okay.  I couldn't tell you much about this scene because I left during it. Watching The Mandarin be made a mockery like that was too cringe worthy for me and I couldn't stand it. 

Listen people, this is Iron Man's greatest adversary, and he is sitting in front of Iron Man talking to him like a bro. Some people say "He wasn't The Mandarin!" No, he was. He had 10 rings, he dressed like The Mandarin and he was opposing Iron Man. 

Like a mirror, right?

"Here's my agent's card."

Some people tell me, "Aldrich Killian is the REAL Mandarin." No he didn't act like THe Mandarin, dress like The Mandarin, or do anything Mandarin-esque. He was a cop-out plain and simple. Imagine this: One hour into The Dark Knight, The Joker takes his make-up off and says, "Sorry about that rank fart I just laid Batman, also Falcone hired me to trick the other mob bosses" Then at the end Robert Falcone fights Batman and exclaims, "I AM THE JOKER!" Does that make Falcone the Joker? He pulled the strings but he didn't have the make-up or the gag weapons? Its the same concept. The Mandarin WAS The Mandarin because he acted like the Mandarin. Its simple. That ruined the film for me, I no longer saw the film as a comic book movie. It was a generic action movie using Marvel characters that Shane Black can do what he wants with. I hope Shane Black stay far away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the rest of the heroes rouges galleries are kept in tact.

"Come at me Shane."

The rest of the movie is pretty much just a blur to me, I was too caught up in The Mandarin twist to really see stuff happen. I know Pepper, Rhodey, and the President are captured by The Mandarin but Tony's armor flies across the country and latches onto him. (I thought it was broken? Whatever.)  Then there's the cool Air Force One save, and then the throwdown between all the Orange Glowstick Gang and Killian happens on a boat. And a bunch of Iron Man suits fight an Extremis induced Killian. 

I kind of snapped back into movie watching mode when Pepper came  back into the film, Paltrow has a way with owning scenes. Pepper is hanging on a ledge and she has to trust Tony to catch her, with no suit, It was a really touching moment. Then, she falls 200 feet into flames to her death only to make an easily foreseeable comeback later. Moment. Wasted. 

Tony fights Killian, some more bad comedy happens and Tony pushes him off a building or something, I don't really know. In the final confrontation Tony seems to be beaten and Killian approaches him and says "You want The Mandarin? I AM the Mandarin." Pepper emerges from the flames! She was infected with Extremis and her body healed she gets a Iron Man suit on and kills the main villain of the movie. Yep. The main villain of the last Iron Man solo movie is killed by Iron Man's girlfriend. So there you go.

After that, Tony somehow cures Extremis. He gets his arc reactor removed and a bunch of story lines are dropped. Like Tony's anxiety? He fights a battle surrounded by a ton of explosions JUST like in The Avengers and that triggers nothing? It is never resolved in the film and Tony simply states what we all knew, the even though he is a changed man, he is "Still Iron Man."

SPOILERS ARE NOW OVER! READ FOR WRAP UP AND RATING!

Iron Man 3 makes me realized a fear of mine. That the more popular comic book movies get, the more that they will deviate from their source material and that really bums me out. I really expected more respect of their source than Marvel gave us and that's just sad. 

Overall, this movie had some really good elements. We got to see a very vulnerable Tony Stark. His ingenuity and, MacGyver inventions were greatly entertaining. All the performances were great, save one that seemed a bit wasted. The first hour of this film was the beginning to a perfect Iron Man film, but then we hit that point of no return and its all downhill from there. It really stopped being an Iron Man movie and became just another action movie.

The comedy was hit and miss for me. Tony's usual snark was spot on. His interactions with the kid were perfect. The Mandarin scene was disgusting and obviously written for people who are going to see Hangover Part III this summer. A lot of it seemed ill timed, where the movie should have been tense or suspenseful there was a joke. The score seemed almost non-existent, I don;t remember a single note of it.

In the end, the good of this movie is overshadowed by it blatant disrespect of the Iron Man comic books and the rushed ending. 

As an action movie, it was really good. I'll give it a 8/10.

As a comic book movie, it was meh. I'll give it a 6/10.

As an Iron Man movie, it was disrespectful to the fans. 4/10

I know that I'm in the minority that did not enjoy this movie but that's fine, I am not new to being called out on my movie tastes. (Transformers fans.)

Next Week The Great Gatsby! 

MiB No Longer MiA

The Men in Back are black (Wait...) and in full swing for Round 3. The first Men in Black film is a movie that I remember watching many times as a child so I have strong ties to the series. I had a few doubts going into this movie mainly due to my connection to the first movie, the quality of the second, and the time span between the movies. (15 years) But none of this mattered because all these doubts were put down early and I was able to get involved and just enjoy the film.


The first part I want to hit on is the story. I really don't expect much going into a MiB movie plot wise. Usually, an alien needs something to destroy the world and they have to go through K (Incredibly grumpy Tommy Lee Jones)  and J (Will Smith) to get it, investigations and memory wipes ensue, and eventually our boys in black nab the bad guys...aliens. This is not one of those stories. The first unique part about it is that the main antagonist, Boris the Animal, an alien with goggles for eyes and a creepy spider thing living in his hand isn't after the earth, he has a personal vendetta against Agent K. By making the villain intentions personal, it makes the overall conflict more personal to the viewer. The other great thing about is putting our protagonist in a uncomfortable situation, that's a reason that the first film was so entertaining. In the original J is thrust into a world full of intergalactic beings, in the third he's thrust into a world that has just been thrust into a world of intergalactic beings. It brings a freshness that the second film was lacking. The lack of Michael Jackson helped too...

I guess he didn't get enough alien joke...

The next part that strengthened the movie was all the actors performances. Needless to say, Josh Brolin gives the 

performance of a lifetime as Young Agent K. Its brilliant 
because he is Agent K, but before Agent K became so surly, and, well, old. He has fun with the role and makes K a womanizing guy who really enjoys other people, and you get to see why K is the way that he is. Will Smith is great as usual, the only thing he lacked was a rap song to play during the credits. (Yes, I was actually disappointed by that.) Jemaine Clement, of Flight of the Conchords fame, plays the main antagonist Boris. He is surprisingly not a comedic character at all, he maybe has one funny scene. It was really interesting to see Clement out of his usually element.  The best character and actor in the movie came out of a new character named, Griffin, a 5th dimensional alien who can see every thing going on in every timeline at the same time, sort of like a Time Lord. 

"Every timeline, you say?"

He gives the most beautiful delivery, every line is spoken with the wonder and enjoyment of a kid in an incredible yet unfamiliar place, it really is spectacular.








The time travel was handled brilliantly. Usually in a film that  hasn't used time travel before, they find a way to muck the time stream up and never address how it was repaired. This is not so in MiB3. The movie gets wrapped up really well, and the time stream is in tack. The continuity fits flawlessly with the first movie, which was made 15 years ago, I find that seriously impressive. Some movies make sequels a year later with no time travel and they still can't keep the continuity between the series. 


There were only two things that I really had a problem with in the film. The first is really minor but it still was bothersome. In the first movie they make K seem like he's still in love with his wife from his previous life pre-MiB. In the second movie, his wife is written out and its revealed that he was in love with a princess from another planet. In this movie its shown that he and Agent O (The Beautiful Emma Thompson/Alice Eve) had at least a fling. The character established in the first film does not seem like one that would jump from woman to woman so frequently, his younger more Josh Brolin-y self, maybe, but not the aged Tommy Lee Agent K. That is a really minor thing but can we not just establish a love interest for these characters and leave them? Not one female lea has lasted more than one movie, and that is really odd to me.

The other thing I disliked is a pretty major writing thing that could have been presented better in all three movies. Spoilers for all 3 movies ahead, consider yourself warned. In the first movie everyone is after a galaxy on Orion's Belt which turns out to be in a jewel on a cat's collar. In MiB2 they're looking for "The Light of (Some Alien Planet)" which is thought to be on a jewel on a necklace when really thats just a sign to were the Light is. Still jewelry holding the key to the main plot of the movie. Now, in the third Agent J and K have to find the ArcNet which is a fields that protect Earth from alien invasions. This is kept inside of a pocket watch or locket or something. I mean really? We HAD to store it in some kind of jewelry?

That's what I call original writing!

Overall, it was a really fun time. You get some good alien busting, some good laughs, and maybe a few tears. It went above and beyond what I expected from any Men in Black movie ever, and visits places that I never would have imagined. I though it had some really clever moments, some incredible character development, and impressive action sequences. I'd give it a 8/10, definitely my favorite of the series. 

Slow Mo White and the Hunstman

I'm going to go into this saying that I really wanted to like this movie. I mean, REALLY, wanted to. I've been following production ever since I heard that Chris Hemsworth was going to be in a Snow White movie. (While we're talking about Hemsworth I'll just get this out here. HE WAS THOR AND IT WAS AWESOME.) The trailers only perked my interests more, and that mirror coming out of the wall only got me MORE excited. So you could say I had some expectations for the film. That was my first mistake: Expecting something. I feel like if I hadn't had any preconceived notions about the movie, I would have liked it more.

   Its hard to just break down the parts of Snow White because there is some great work, there's some mediocre stuff, and then there is some downright crap. So I'll steal a format from a blog I read (The Human Scorch you're interested) and break it down into the Good, the Meh, and the Bad. We'll start with the good.

The Good

There was a lot of stuff that I actually liked in the movie (That's right Transformer's fans. I like stuff) 

-Charlize Theron/ The Evil Queen

Just look at her! The woman radiates hate. The reason I liked The Queen so much is because they gave her a REASON to be evil. She has motivation. It wasn't "Well, her name has Evil in it right? She's gotta be evil." They made me think what I would do if I had been in her shoes. (Heels?) Also, Charlize Theron is great in almost everything, and she is just downright gorgeous. She gave the best performance of the movie, and made it able to sit through.

Ultimate Thor?

-Hemsworth

I'm not going to lie, I thought that Hemsworth would just be playing Thor in a different universe. Boy was I wrong. His character was really poorly written, and he didn't have much to work with dialogue wise, but he gave a splendid performance, and he is just downright gorgeous. I was really impressed with a monologue he gives near the end of the movie, it had me tearing up. Fair, its not hard to do, but after the mood this movie put me in, I thought I would only cry if I looked up the run time.

The only other thing I like would spoil the only part of the movie that I actually cared about so I'll hold off for that. Lets just say there was a writing move that was incredibly smart but also obvious.

The Meh

I'm about to blow all of your minds...

-Kristen Stewart

That's right ladies and gents, Kristen Stewart get a "meh." She was not half bad, and needless to say,  I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't absolutely hate her like I did in Twilight, but she didn't give a good performance. I was among the many skeptics of Kristen Stewart as Snow White, and I was proved wrong. She made the role her own and even though I wasn't crazy about what she did with it, she did what she could with the awkward writing and I was content. 

This may be wrong...

-The Dwarves

These (Not really) little guys were the most fun the movie allowed itself to have. While their entrance is really late, when they do enter, you pay attention to nothing else. My main problem lies with their lack of use. They were kind of just...there. They show up, you like it, and then you wonder when they'll become relevent. Spoiler Alert: They don't. The performances were great, the costumes were unsettling but brilliant, they just weren't used in anyway at all, and it felt like they were only there because they had to be. 

-The Action

For a movie that marketed itself as a gritty, dark retelling, the grittiness and darkness were kept pretty low. I mean, yes, there are action sequences (That are drawn out by ridiculous amounts of slow mo.) They're all pretty basic and nothing too impressive. Most of the time I was thinking "What is this black glass and where is it coming from?" I wasn't disappointed with the amount of action, I was disappointed that it was all so unoriginal. Nothing spectacular happens, I seriously almost fell asleep in one of the "action" sequences. 

The Bad

-Basic Storytelling

Here's how things usually progress in a movie.

1.Something is shown, or hinted at but never explained.

2. The thing is explained and it provides insight to a character or adds an element to the plot.

Here's how it goes in Snow White and the Huntsman.

1. Something is shown, or hinted at but never explained.

There are so many great B-plots running throughout this movie and none of it is ever explored. I got invested in so many interesting elements in the story, and then I get no explanation what so ever. The best example I can think of is the Queen's backstory. The dialogue makes many references to why she does what she does, we even get a cool flashback sequence of her childhood, and then the whole things is dropped and never revisited. There were a lot of really predictable story elements that took up more time than needed and the potentially cool elements took backseat. 

Romance can only be SO interesting!

"I've had enough with the Hawkeye jokes."

-William  

Who is this guy and why was he here? He provided nothing to the plot, not a darn thing. He was there to shoot a bow, so instead of cool axe work by the Hunstman we get arrow shooting, and not cool arrow shooting, just basic archery. I thought he might cause a love triangle between Snow White, The Huntsman (Thats his name.) and William, but if it did, they picked it up for like a minute and a half then dropped it.

"You know I had to appear in the bad section, right?"

-Snow White

Why is she so darn special? I was never told why Snow White was the only way for the Queen to fail. There was nothing spectacular about her birth , no spell, no enchantment, no connection between her and the Queen what so ever! One of the dwarves says "She is life." (Or something like that.) Why? She has nothing special about her! The only thing that they mention setting her apart from other people is her beauty, and if that saves lives then Charlize Theron should have been the one saving people! Not that Kristen Stewart isn't attractive, I just wouldn't be able to close her mouth, and not because she talks a lot, she just doesn't seem to have the ability to close it. 

-SLOW MOTION 

Whoever directed this jumbled mess must have gone to the Michael Bay School of Art and majored in slow  mo. It was used in every fight scene. It gets old within the first 15 minutes of the movie and it just keeps coming. There was one fight that had a slow motion hit, five seconds of normal speed fighting, and then more slow mo. It drove me absolutely insane.

All in all, not a horrible movie, I would rather watch it than Battleship (Before you ask, No.) but I wish I hadn't spent 7 dollars on it. I really can't suggest this to many people because the different parts of it are so ranged in quality. Chris Hemsworth fans go, I'm sure Twilight fans would eat this crap up (even though there are no shirtless wolves.) and if you like being bored for 50% of a movie, you'll enjoy Snow White and the Huntsman. This guy didn't enjoy it, and gives it a whopping 5/10. Next up. Men in Black 3, or is it Men in Black Cubed?